The World Baseball Softball Confederation(WBSC) President Riccardo Fraccari attended the first ever meeting of theInternational Olympic Committee’s Esports Commission on Wednesday.
President Fraccari was chosen to sit on thecommission alongside 21 other members last month and joined Chair DavidLappartient, President of the French National Olympic Committee and UnionCycliste Internationale, at Olympic House in Lausanne for the inauguralmeeting.
The IOC have created the Commission inrecognition of the enormous potential that Esports have to engage the nextgeneration and to help provide opportunities to athletes and fans. The tasks ofthe Commission are mainly to provide recommendations to the IOC Executive Boardsupporting the implementation of Olympic Agenda 2020+5 for esports and gamingand to support IFs in governing virtual and electronic forms of their sports, amongothers.
Following the WBSC’s success in Esports,which saw WBSC eBASEBALL: Power Pros released in successful collaboration withKONAMI in February and the game selected as one of the 10 sports for theinaugural Olympic Esports Series, President Fraccari was invited on to the newCommission. He was joined at Wednesday’s meeting by Konami’s Shinji Namekawa and called it thestart of a new era for Esports.
President Fraccari said: “It was an honourto be selected to be a member of the IOC Esports Commission and our firstmeeting was productive as we discussed the next steps for Esports within theOlympic Movement. My fellow Commission members are and I are all excited aboutits potential moving forward and I believe that we are ready for a new era ofEsports
“The WBSC’s partnership with KONAMI and thehard work of all the WBSC staff members has been the key behind the success ofWBSC eBASEBALL: Power Pros, especially at the Olympic Esport Series and therecently launch eBaseball Series. I am looking forward to our Esports journeycontinuing and the next meeting of the Commission.”
