Embracing the sportification of society: Defining e-sports through a polymorphic view on sport

Highlights• E-sports are a manifestation of sportification.• Sportification means to view, organize, or regulate a non-sport activity in such a way that it resembles a sport and allows a fair, pleasurable, and safe environment for individuals to compete and cooperate.• Sportification should allow competitors to compare their performances to each other, and future and past performances.• Sportification might occur by adding a sport component to an existing activity in order to make it more attractive to its audiences.• The negative and positive effects of e-sports need to be examined with the sport management discipline.