Angel Munoz, founder and president of the Cyberathlete Professional League

Is a competitive video game tournament really a sporting event? And can a professional gamer really be considered an athlete? For Angel Munoz, the answer to both questions is an unequivocal "yes." Munoz, 46, is considered the father of professional gaming. He created the Cyberathlete Professional League in 1997 and since has become an influential figure in the gaming industry and e-sports movement. Today, the CPL holds numerous events across the globe as part of its World Tour Championship series, where gamers compete in everything from Counter-Strike and Quake to Guitar Hero tournaments. And top pro gamers are winning hundreds of thousands of dollars and earning major sponsorships.

"The whole landscape of professional gaming is changing," he said.

Munoz says pro gaming has taken off in the last year; registration applications for the 2006 World Tour Championship Finals event, which starts this Saturday in Dallas, increased 300% from last year's event, which was the inaugural World Tour Championship series. The CPL has tried to keep up with the growth and interest in e-sports.

"You realize all of these events are sort of on the edge of becoming a total disaster," Munoz said. "At the last moment it all comes together - don't ask me how, because it's a miracle."

The CPL founder tells TwitchGuru why gamers can be real athletes and why e-sports will eventually become a mainstream attraction in the years to come.

Rob Wright: Was there a moment when you realized how big the CPL and e-sports had become?

Munoz: When I started the CPL, I had a sort of vague but compelling vision of what it could become. But to a certain degree, it was all wishful thinking. I was just so convinced that this would work that it was almost an irrational obsession. But there were two experiences that really triggered in my mind how this was becoming. One was circumstantial, which was when I realized about a year ago how many competitors the CPL had. That was a moment of realization. We really, sincerely were the first ones out there promoting the idea of professional gaming. So I have all these competitors and companies that are getting into this. But the really big epiphany occurred last year at the CPL World Tour finals, which was in New York City. It was recorded by MTV and viewed by 110,000 people live on the Internet. That was the largest amount of streamers for any e-sports broadcast online. We also had 1.1 million people tune into the television show on MTV. Our event blew the doors off of all the previous e-sports events. And I think it became real for everyone at that point. And that's when I became convinced that this was a sport and that at some time in the near future people were going to tune in and admire these people just like people admire Michael Jordan. And I know it still sounds far-fetched, but there's no question in my mind that it will happen.

RW: The 2005 CPL World Tour was your first world tour competition. What did you learn after putting on such a large series of events across the globe?

Munoz: The first thing I learned was that you can't force a game on the gaming community. We picked a game, Painkiller, because we could control the game; we had a license for the game [with publisher Dreamcatcher Interactive] that gave us exclusive rights for competitions. And honestly, we miscalculated. We thought that having control over a game would be an asset to the CPL, but it ended up being a liability. To acquire a license for a game that no one was interested in and think that people were going to drop what they were playing and play [Painkiller] just because it was our exclusive game was completely far-fetched.

Another thing I learned was that you really have to micromanage events like the World Tour. You can't escape the details, and it's hard not to be directly involved with everything. We had an incident in Italy just recently for the 2006 World Tour; we found out a few days before the event that our partners in Italy hadn't acquired computers for the tournament. That was the first time in nine years that something like that had happened. But when those things happen, one person ultimately has to handle it, and that's me. So I had to go out there and take the criticism and not make any excuses. But it was an amazing experience because we got it taken care of, and even some of our competitors called me and asked how they could help. It was absolutely the opposite of what I expected to happen.