2024 YouTube video by Mastercard and G2 Esports advertising their “Gamer Academy.” The video opens with the spoken lines: “So, you wanna work in esports? Great! Step 1: Never spell it like that. [Gesturing to a screen displaying the word “e-sports” with a hyphen. The screen adjusts, now displaying “esports” without a hyphen.] Better!”

The most commonly accepted spelling within the community today is esports. This is the spelling I will use in this project, though I will retain the original spelling used when quoting others.

The hyphenated spelling e-sports, while not widely used within the community today, is still commonly found in news reports, academic scholarship, and other writing from outside the community. The hyphenated spelling used to be much more common than it is today and was used by fans and outside commentators alike. Today, however, fans encountering the hyphenated spelling are likely to roll their eyes and write its source off as an outsider; e-sports carries with it a connotation of “Wow, what a novelty! People getting paid to play video games!”, while esports communicates a deeper level of respect and familiarity.

eSports - with no hyphen and a capital S - is another alternative that has almost entirely fallen out of use.