Labor backbencher Michael Pettersson wants to see Canberra develop an esports strategy to capture the booming gaming market and bring tourism dollars to the capital.
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Mr Pettersson will introduce a motion to the ACT Assembly on Wednesday calling on the government to develop a strategy to take a slice of an industry expected to be worth US$1.5 billion by 2020.
Esports - essentially competitive video gaming as a spectator sport - is booming. Locally, more people watched 2018's Australian soccer teams compete in the "E-League" grand final than the actual A-League final.
"They're not amateur players, they're professionals," Mr Pettersson said
"They hold big video game tournaments that fill out tournaments."
But Mr Pettersson said he was only calling for the development of a strategy and did not have one in mind.
"I don't want to put too fine a detail on how they go about doing it, there's lots of examples all around the world," he said.
"We can look domestically in Melbourne."
Last year, the Victorian government chipped in $4.5 million to see Melbourne host Australia's largest esports tournament, the Melbourne Esports Open, which saw crowds of more than 10,000 on its inaugural weekend.
Mr Pettersson said overseas 60 million people tuned in to watch an esports final with the National Basketball Association finals averaging only 20 million viewers per game.
Esports has already being tackled by the Australian Football League, with clubs recruiting gamers to compete in esports tournaments.
The leader of Canberra's bid for an A-League team, Michael Caggiano, had started to put together the team's on esports side before their A-League bid was shot down.
Ravi Sharma, co-owner of Canberra's video game bar Reload, was excited about Mr Pettersson's motion.
"It's what we're all about, we've been pushing in that direction for years," he said.
Reload already helped host large-scale esport events across Canberra, including at university lecture halls, EPIC and the Australian Institute of Sports.
"It's a global trend," Mr Sharma said.
Mr Sharma said sporting clubs like the Adelaide Crows were getting into esports because, as audience growth flattened in both the men's and women's league, they had nowhere to grow.
"Revenue sources of [the Australian Football League] are tapped out," Mr Sharma said.
In Canberra, Mr Pettersson said it was up to clubs like the ACT Brumbies or Canberra Raiders to get involved.
His motion said building a bigger esports audience would bring more attention to Canberra and promote local economic growth.
It points to the possibilities of luring the Asian tourism market - including the use of more direct flights - and video game studios.
"Canberra is actually already quite prominent for its game studios. We have several in the ACT already and they're highly esteemed," he said.
