CNN
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Most points in NBA history. Fourth most triple-doubles. Fifth most three-pointers made.
LeBron James is in the conversation for so many records that it is barely a surprise when you hear of another one.
That is, until, he reveals that he is one of the top 100 players in the world at the video game Madden NFL 25, as he did in October.
“LeBron really is that good at Madden,” his former teammate and fellow NBA champion Channing Frye tells CNN Sport.
Video games have been inching their way into the sporting world for years. On December 21, NBC Sports and Peacock viewers were able to watch the Kansas City Chiefs’ 27-19 win over the the Houston Texans on an alternate broadcast which featured elements of Madden NFL 25, such as player ratings and graphics direct from the video game.
Two days before that, New York Jets owner Woody Johnson reportedly had turned down the chance to trade for current Cleveland Browns wide receiver Jerry Jeudy in the offseason because of his Madden in-game rating, according to The Athletic.
Still, the news that an elite traditional sport athlete might be quite so devoted to a video game is a revelation which subverts the classic, outdated understanding of who sportspeople are: pro athletes definitely don’t play video games that much.
It turns out, though, that they do.
“I was just really into World of Warcraft, when it first came out,” remembers Frye. “I was on there with Malik Rose, Andrei Kirilenko, Quentin Richardson, (five-time NBA champion) Tim Duncan, myself. We were nerding out! Nerding out. I had an opportunity to play with (San Antonio Spurs legend) David Robinson. So that game was pretty wild.”
Frye’s experience with the game is mostly positive, a place for him and other players to hang out and decompress from the stresses of elite-level sport.
“Dookiedrawls was (the online handle of) my guy!” he laughs. “I had a snake, and when the snake would bite you, with the graphics it looks like it punches you in the nuts, so I named him Dickpuncher. So I’d be like ‘Go get him, Dickpuncher!’
“And then me and my boys, who would play, they would all have inappropriate names for their pets. So we would laugh every single time. You’re getting beaten up by Dickpuncher, Eye Gouger, Wet Willie!”
The crossover between the NBA and the gaming world goes far beyond Frye’s guild and its collection of questionably named animals.
“Devin Booker, KD, all those guys are playing Call of Duty,” says Frye. “I think Luka (Dončić) is like a diamond or a platinum (ranking) in Overwatch. I know that Robin and Brook Lopez play Overwatch also. So I would say 75% of guys (in the NBA) play video games.”
Former Slam Dunk Contest winner Terrence Ross estimates that the number of players is even higher.
“I would say at least 80%,” he tells CNN Sport. “Especially with the NBA getting younger and younger, a lot of these kids are just naturally growing up on the PlayStation, Xbox, whatever it may be.”
Ross takes gaming seriously. The former Toronto Raptors, Orlando Magic and Phoenix Suns man has a fully functioning arcade machine in his home office – which he calls his “happy space” – complete with a picture of himself as a superhero on the side.
“It’s just me in a cape with a big Superman tee on my chest, looking super dieseled,” he laughs. “It’s not bad!”
Such is Ross’ passion that he even took up streaming towards the end of his basketball career.
“I had a little kit I used to bring with me on the road that allowed me to stream,” he says. “So I used to bring a duffel case with a laptop, camera, microphone, anything I might need.
“It’s one of those things where it’s almost… not another job, but it keeps me active.”
Both Frye and Ross take pride in their gaming abilities, but it would not be unfair to say that their achievements are outdone by those of former snooker world champion Neil Robertson.
The only snooker player from outside the UK ever to have completed the sport’s Triple Crown – the World Championship, the Masters and the UK Championship – Robertson also spent a number of years competing with the world’s best in World of Warcraft.
“I was in one of the top five guilds in the world,” the Australian tells CNN Sport. “There’s not many sportsmen who can say that!
“I used to practice (snooker) in the morning and then I’d go to the internet café, and I’d be there for like 10 hours until it closed. The guys absolutely loved me in there!”
All three of Frye, Ross and Robertson speak of some genuinely great gaming memories, but also of a point where it just all became too much.
“There are a lot of guys in the league that have problems sleeping, just because we are on the road so much, we’re traveling, doing this and that,” says Frye. “And what a video game does is just keep you up. And so I’ve seen guys stay up all night just playing.
“I was spending more time on the video game than I was watching basketball. Obviously, I was doing my workouts, but it was like, ‘Would I stay an extra 30 minutes? Ah, no – let me go home earlier so I have 30 minutes to play.’”
Frye was able to curtail his relationship with World of Warcraft early enough. “That one got to the point where I was just like, ‘I have to delete my account,’” he says. “That was too much. I literally, in the summertime, wouldn’t leave my room for 24 hours.”
Back then, academic research on video game addiction was hard to come by. But, since 2019, the World Health Organization has recognized “gaming disorder” as a health condition.
While the former Cavs man stops short of saying that he was ever addicted, Ross is less sure when asked the same question.
“I definitely could see it,” he says. “I definitely had a period where it was like, ‘Alright, now my son is like three or four, I can’t play video games for four hours during the day, just like straight after practice.’ I had to mix it up.
“But I noticed that it was such a comfort thing for me that I wouldn’t even notice myself just going into my office and just hopping on the game. It was so out of the ordinary. It was such a habit that I had to, like, break it.
“It was tough. It sounds ridiculous, but me and my wife used to get into arguments, like, ‘You’re playing the game too much.’ I’m like, ‘No, I’m not.’ But after a while, I started to realize, ‘Okay, I can kind of see it.’”
Is it possible to play as much as Frye and Ross and it not have an effect on your performances on the court?
“I think it’s almost impossible for it not to,” says Cam Adair, founder of Game Quitters, a support community for people struggling with gaming addiction. “And the biggest reason for that is just that amount of hours, it just doesn’t leave a lot of time for other things.
“Are they sleeping as much and recovering as much as they need to? Are they doing the extra training that they need to?”
Adair recalls a case where he was approached by the manager of an NFL team who was worried about one of his players.
“This player was a rising star, really coming on, and was due for a huge, multi-year contract,” he remembers. “And his manager called me because he was quite concerned about the amount of gaming he was doing. It wasn’t necessarily, yet, affecting his play on the field, but the manager was a little bit concerned about the way it was affecting his downtime, so not spending as much time on his business as he should have been, or on recovery or rest.
“This player, his performance started to decline and injuries started to pile up, and actually, he didn’t get that multi-year deal. At the time that deal would have been worth about $14 million a year on a multi-year deal.
“It didn’t keep him from playing in the NFL, but this is like, tens of millions of dollars left on the table.”
In Ross’ case, the impact on his actions on the court, while subtle, came in the form of wondering whether his real-life performances on the court would affect the rating of his virtual likeness in the video game NBA 2K.
“I’m thinking about my percentages more when I’m playing because now I’m like every shot felt like it was a little more… it felt a little heavier, just because I was like, ‘If I have a bad game in real life, I know my guy on 2K is probably going to get a little worse.’ So, like, I’m thinking about that in the back of my mind.”
If Ross remains somewhat undecided on whether his gaming represented a habit or an addiction, Robertson does not.
“I was an addict for sure. Oh my god, yeah,” he says. “You’re somewhat in denial about it all. You’re thinking it’s not impacting you when it really is.”
Robertson’s addiction began when he was about 19 years old, trying to make it as a professional back in Australia.
“I remember Diablo II coming out. That was like the first time when there was a bit of a serious problem,” he says. “I remember my mom making an account for herself so she could log in and check on me, to make sure I wasn’t playing during the day, that I was actually going to the snooker club and practicing.”
Unfortunately, while Robertson was able to shake off his Diablo II addiction, that game was just replaced by a succession of others throughout the Australian’s career, many of which affected his results on the snooker table.
“For sure it impacted my practice, and then that’s obviously going to impact your performances on the table,” he says. “Sometimes I’ve gotten away with it and I’ve actually maintained a really good ranking and still been able to win many tournaments. But there’s other times where I’ve gone off the boil for a few months.”
One such time came in the 2013-14 season. “The second half of that season, when I got into FIFA 14, I actually had a big drop off in results because I just was playing this game all the time,” he remembers. “I was going to practice angry because I was losing (at FIFA). It was just horrific.
“There would be some days where I’d get so infuriated playing the game that I wouldn’t even go to practice.”
Another of Robertson’s addictions was the game League of Legends. “Many years ago, when I’d be playing League of Legends, you know, this game is going on maybe 20 minutes longer than it should have done, but it’s so close,” he says.
“Realistically, I should be in the shower getting ready for my match. All of a sudden, the game finishes, I’m quickly running around getting ready. And then maybe I don’t perform as well as I could.”
Robertson’s addiction to World of Warcraft even had him blocking out thoughts of deliberately losing snooker tournaments so that he could spend more time gaming.
“Our raiding nights (in World of Warcraft) were Wednesdays and Sundays,” he explains. “Sunday is always the day of the final of a snooker tournament, and I remember thinking, ‘Don’t fall into the trap of thinking it’s okay to lose in the semis on Saturday because that means you can raid on Sunday.’”
He recalls another incident when he realized the hotel he was staying in for a snooker tournament in China did not have good enough Wi-Fi to play online.
“I’d be like, ‘Oh my god, my trip is going to be a nightmare now. I play a snooker match, and then for the other 14 hours of the day, I’m going to be staring at the ceiling with nothing to do,’” he says. “And your subconscious kicks in to where you almost want to get beat so you can just come home.”
Having been mostly clean for seven years now, Robertson, who is still playing snooker at the highest level, is able to reflect on what might make professional sportspeople particularly at risk of video game addiction.
“I’ve got a very obsessive nature about me, like all top sportsmen do. When I find a hobby that I get really into, if it’s not healthy it can be pretty bad,” he explains. “Everything I do, I do 100%.”
It is a sentiment echoed by both Frye and Ross. “I’m very competitive,” says the former. “My son is better than me at Overwatch, so I’m like watching YouTube (for tips). I was just doing that before this interview.”
“I think the competitiveness is definitely an aspect that draws a lot of guys to play,” concurs Ross. “Because, at the end of the day, it’s like everything that we do is pretty much a game. You always want to strive to be the best, and whatever it is you’re doing – whether it’s academics, sports, your work – it’s always like that added push of the competitiveness that comes out.”
Another element, Ross explains, is the amount of time athletes spend away from home, particularly at young ages. The now-33-year-old says that the time he was gaming the most came “right when I got drafted.”
“Because I was still a young kid, coming out of college. I was probably around like 20, 21 maybe. I got drafted to Toronto, so I’m in a different country, pretty much by myself.
“I felt I got drafted to a team who was just like, they’re all older guys. It was me and the other rookie that were the youngest on the team, and everybody else had kids and a family and wives and girlfriends. So I was just kind of like, ‘Alright, well, I don’t really have much to do anyway. I don’t have too many creative outlets. I just don’t want to go over to a teammate’s house and, you know, just hop in the middle of his family time.’
“Man, I remember there was some stretches. I didn’t know what else to do,” he continues. “I’d play for a good three, four hours, take a nap, go get something to eat, come back, play another three or four hours, go to bed, wake up, and I’d just be doing that over and over again.”
It is a pattern which Adair has seen play out plenty of times.
“(One of) the big things that makes them (sportspeople) kind of vulnerable is, first, they have a lot of downtime,” he says. “And that downtime, they almost need to rest. They need to relax and rest and recharge and stay home, stay out of trouble. And when you’re sitting around on the couch, what are you gonna do? Gaming is kind of the thing, right?
“A lot of young people are affected because they’re outside their culture, all their friends are back home, it’s a different time zone.”
Part of the solution, according to Adair, is to treat video game addiction in the same way teams and leagues treat the more well-known problems that athletes face, like going out to bars and clubs.
“Traditionally, there were other activities, and now it’s more gaming, and they need to understand what the impacts are,” he says. “Gaming for that amount of hours has an effect on your brain, it has an effect on your motivation, it has an effect on your overall spirit.
“If you really want to be able to perform at the highest level, you need the right training in order to do it. And I think gaming and technology and social media are all within that realm now, as a new frontier that they need to be educated on.”
Athletes will continue to look for new ways to compete, or unwind, or talk to friends and family back home. With the proper guidance, video games can help athletes achieve all three of these goals.
“Sometimes, having an escape from the real world and finding community is great,” Frye points out.
“But you gotta live in the real world for it to be a game.”
