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Speaker 1: Right now we have the all Blacks, but have you

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Speaker 1: heard of the e Blacks? Here we e sports athletes

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Speaker 1: are going to be heading to Saudi Arabia next year

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Speaker 1: to compete in the first ever Olympic Esports Games. The

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Speaker 1: International Olympic Committee voted unanimously for Saudi Arabia to host them.

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Speaker 1: The decision comes as Read hosts the Esports World Cup,

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Speaker 1: a two month event drawing two and a half thousand

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Speaker 1: gamers competing. Forget this, one hundred million New Zealand dollars

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Speaker 1: in prize money. It's massive. Connor English is the president

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Speaker 1: of New Zealand Esports and he's with me now, Connor.

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Speaker 2: Good morning. Are you good?

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Speaker 1: So is this going to be like an official Olympics

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Speaker 1: endorsed thing.

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Speaker 2: Yes it is. Yeah, it's a whole new Olympic competition

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Speaker 2: that's been created. So you'll have the Summer Olympics, the

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Speaker 2: Winter Olympics, and then the Esports Olympics and they're likely

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Speaker 2: to be in rotation over the four years.

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Speaker 1: What do we like at esports? How many full time

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Speaker 1: athletes do we have, if any?

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Speaker 2: We don't have a lot of full time athletes, but

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Speaker 2: we do have some very good athletes. Esports as a

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Speaker 2: sort of structured sport if you like is you know,

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Speaker 2: it's a growing area of sports in New Zealand and

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Speaker 2: we're getting as the New Zealand Esports Federation. We've been

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Speaker 2: putting in frames, for example, across the schools to help

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Speaker 2: have integrity and the competitions and to build pathways for

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Speaker 2: athletes to you know progress. And now that we've got

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Speaker 2: this Olympic Games opportunity, then we'll be looking at how

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Speaker 2: we build pathways towards the Olympic Games for athletes.

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Speaker 1: It must be one of the sports that has flushed

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Speaker 1: with money, is it. I mean, it just seems every

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Speaker 1: time we talk about esports it's always something one hundred

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Speaker 1: million dollars.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, Well, I think what we know is that,

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Speaker 2: you know, gaining in esports has really grown, and you're

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Speaker 2: seeing you know a lot of movies now turning into

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Speaker 2: into esports games and often there's more money in the

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Speaker 2: gaming than what there is in the movies. So there

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Speaker 2: is a lot of money in the sector. We also

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Speaker 2: know that the participation rates are growing very substantially and

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Speaker 2: very quickly. If you talk to anyone younger than you

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Speaker 2: and I Ryan, a lot of those people have been

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Speaker 2: playing gaming in some shape or form, so participation is

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Speaker 2: very high and now we're just moving through to having

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Speaker 2: more structured competitions, so there is a lot of money

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Speaker 2: in that, because there is a lot of money in gaming.

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Speaker 1: Connor, thanks for your time this morning, and good luck

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Speaker 1: with the Olympics. That's Connor English.

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