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Speaker 1: To give you a sense, speaking of sport esports, how

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Speaker 1: big they are. The IOC Olympic Committee vote for Saudi

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Speaker 1: Arabia to host the first ever Esports Games next year.

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Speaker 1: Are they going to have medals? Yes, they're also going

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Speaker 1: to have one hundred million dollars in prize money. Now,

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Speaker 1: New Zealand Esports Chief Executive Jonathan Jensen is, well, it's

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Speaker 1: Jonathan morning.

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Speaker 2: Good morning, Mike.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, well, could you put a team together to represent

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Speaker 1: New Zealand tomorrow with what you would think is a medal?

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Speaker 1: Chances are we any good?

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Speaker 2: Absolutely depends on the game, because remember that esports has

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Speaker 2: lots of different types of games and so we don't

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Speaker 2: know the exact details yet. Think of it a little

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Speaker 2: bit like athletics. We don't know if it's going to

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Speaker 2: be one hundred meter sprints or the high jump or

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Speaker 2: a long jump. But depending on the game that we're

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Speaker 2: and we've had great success before. We had a bronze

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Speaker 2: medal in twenty twenty two at the Global Games with

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Speaker 2: Reagan Kelly and Street Fighter, and so yeah, no, we're

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Speaker 2: absolutely in with a chance, especially because we've been in

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Speaker 2: the esports space for such a long time. We've been

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Speaker 2: doing a lot of good stuff that some other countries

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Speaker 2: aren't quite up to speed with yet.

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Speaker 1: Is that going to change the game? Because that was

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Speaker 1: my next question. What game would they use and how

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Speaker 1: would they decide what that is? And if it's a game,

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Speaker 1: when good on do you change the whole sport here

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Speaker 1: by everybody you know, tooling up on whatever the game

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Speaker 1: for the Olympics is, because it'll have to be the

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Speaker 1: same game, won't it.

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Speaker 2: Well, it's probably going to be, And that's why they've

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Speaker 2: got their own Olympic Esports games it is because it's

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Speaker 2: going to be you know, we don't know if it's

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Speaker 2: ten or fifteen different game titles in there. And so

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Speaker 2: that's a little bit of the world that we've always

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Speaker 2: lived in, is that we've always been prepared for. You know,

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Speaker 2: is there going to be a e football? Is there

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Speaker 2: going to be a street fighter? Is it going to

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Speaker 2: be a sim racing? And I think in this instance

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Speaker 2: we're guessing an educated guess would be that they'll have

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Speaker 2: almost all of them. There'll be a lot of different

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Speaker 2: things there, and so it's about sending a big wide

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Speaker 2: range of teams. We might have, you know, twenty athletes

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Speaker 2: going over there, to compete.

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Speaker 1: Do you call them athletes?

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Speaker 2: Oh? Absolutely is esports.

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Speaker 1: And I don't want to get into this, but I

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Speaker 1: have is an athletic pursuit per se. I'm not against

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Speaker 1: these sports. I'm just saying, is it an athletic pursuit?

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Speaker 2: Look, remember that gaming and esports is different. And if

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Speaker 2: you were if you just go to the beach with

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Speaker 2: some mates and you throw up all around, you wouldn't

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Speaker 2: call yourself in all black and jumping on the couch

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Speaker 2: and playing games isn't esports. But the competitive aspect of esports.

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Speaker 2: I think, you know, I could answer this question one

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Speaker 2: hundred different ways. I could tell you about how the

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Speaker 2: commitment and the discipline and the teamworkers exists. Or I

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Speaker 2: could tell you about, you know, at a top level,

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Speaker 2: all of the health sciences that go into being a

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Speaker 2: successful you know, esports player. But the Olympics they've got

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Speaker 2: We've got an Olympic esports games now, and so I

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Speaker 2: think that discussion is fairly close. Is it a sport

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Speaker 2: for everyone? No, but you know it's at the Olympics

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Speaker 2: now you win.

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Speaker 1: Good point. Jonathan Jensen, who's the New Zealand esports CEO,

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Speaker 1: with us this morning.

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