I dunno.
Personally, I believe that support has shifted in computer gaming as compared to sports, and will continue to shift.
In sports we use things like spears, shoes, bicycles, up to racing cars. But none of them relies on a narrative or story, except by the story around the sport itself. Few - if any - of the sports are part of culture the way computer games already are, and we see no stopping of this progression anytime soon.
This explicit cultural relevance taken together with the fact that China, and several other countries for that matter, already has made gaming political by requiring games to not feature elements that oppose their regime, sensibilities, or culture, makes a compelling argument that competitors must be allowed a greater freedom of speech, even in the context of competitions.