Dictionary definition: No

Taken as seriously as any professional sport: Yes, absolutely

if eCompetitors are considered athletes, then the Hot dog eating contest should be a sport too!

No not Athletes, but maybe...E-Letes...AM I RIGHT!?!?

By who? I honestly don't know anyone in real life who wouldn't laugh the idea.

I don't think I've ever even heard this question let alone thought about it.

No.

I think pro gamers are more of an athlete than golfers, bowlers, and pool players.

I wouldn't call them athletes since I think an athlete is someone whose sport is defined with physical exhausting activities and not the mind, fast reaction in the fingers or stuff like that. So, for me people like darts players, pro gamers, chess players or people who participate at Olympic shooting aren't really athletes to me but that doesn't mean that they don't deserve the same respect if they invest the same time to be one of the best.

I mean, even gamers often say that pro gamers don't deserve respect since they do nothing as playing videogames but that is as true as saying that the best football player on this planet is doing only what million other people do as well, playing football...

Playing Starcraft or football for fun or to train to be one of the best in football or Starcraft is something totally different. If it would be so easy many more people would be so good in these games but they aren't because you have to learn every possible strategy, learn  what to do in every single second sor like in fighting games, train to be the guy who has the advantage of one single frame or pixel. Why do most people (also gamers who play as much as pro gamers) not do it? Because it is super stressful and not really fun. You have to have the desire to do it as much as athletes have to have it to invest hours every day to get better and not to have fun.

Seriously as in:

- It's a thing people genuinely enjoy playing and watching, equally as much as football or baseball
- People devote their lives to being the best at it and can earn a stable living through it
- The storylines surrounding the teams and players can be every bit as powerful as in mainstream sports

As long as people understand the above is true, I don't care if they laugh or not.

The framing of this question in the title is INCREDIBLY BAD, because people can go, "lol no its not physical end of thread" and not seriously consider it.

No. Gaming has nothing to do with athletics outside of simulating it. Actually, gaming is stopping quite a few people from even being involved in athletics. A gamer is a gamer no different than how a chess player is a chess player. They are good at playing games.

No. It might take a great deal of skill and strategy, but so do many other things that are not athletic in nature. I'm not here to judge people who are professional gamers, but it's simply not the same class of activity as sports.

Overall, I would say that the desire to use the terms e-sports and athletes shows an inferiority complex. Pro gamers feel the need to latch on to a respected phenomena because what they're doing is not respected.