Nielsen’s e-sports business vertical recently released a new set of stats on the landscape of electronic sporting, and how fans and followers view the burgeoning pastime and its potential to become an industry-leading market all its own.

In a recent report over on the Nielsen website about “Understanding the Fans”, the study reveals that 53% of all e-sports fans actually think that e-sports is a real sport.

Fans who participated in the study come from the U.S., U.K., France, and Germany. 71% of those fans also think that in the future the e-sports market will become a mainstream pastime, not unlike other major league sports. You can check out the chart below.

Fans were a little less enthusiastic or willing to accept that e-sports deserves a spot at the Olympics. Only 28% of respondents felt the electronic competition should be featured at one of the biggest events to happen every four years in the world of sports.

A few more, however, felt that e-sports definitely deserves a spot on college campuses at least, with 41% giving a nod in the direction of keeping the controller and keyboard-themed sporting event nestled into university and collegiate sports category.

What’s interesting here, though, is that more people think that e-sports deserves to be considered an actual sport compared to the amount of people who think that it deserves to be recognized as a collegiate sport.

I’m curious why exactly there’s a distinction between how it should be recognized at colleges and universities and how mainstream audiences view it as a real-life competitive sporting event?

Either way, it seems like at least most fans of the growing trend seem to think that it’s only going to get bigger, whether people recognize it as a legitimate sport or not.

Now all they need to do is find some way to actually monetize e-sports.