Thresh? Ha! That old dog. I remember him form the old Doom II circuit. (1st devision UK Doom II League Veteran here). As I understand he won a Ferrari, when he then proptly sold, for winning his first major tournament (Quake). Again, if memory serves me, never really made a succesful transition to other games. Quake was kinda his swansong.
As for the whole sport thing, I think it will be eventually, but it's going to take alot of time, work and technology. For starters it needs to more accessible to the mainstream. That means TV (or net-TV, if thats the future). As part of that gaming need to be more spectator friendly. Don't really know how to achieve this, but it needs to be done. A game needs to be developed specifically for this tournament, or at least the highest level. It would need to be designed to test a set of skills that are agreed before hand as being key to a great gamer. The game would most likely need to be distributed free - compare it to football (what you yanks would call soccer). You don't pay to use a local field (the game), you only buy your own ball (your pc).
Money needs to be involved, and lots of it. That means advertising and sponsorship. And that means getting as many people as possible to watch it.
But the most important thing of is people perception. Gaming needs a new image, to replace the stereotype of the pale spotty teenager sitting in a dark room, thinking up goverment conspiricies, with girlfriend and no life. Girls/Women need to be encouraged to play, and it needs to be marketed as a fast changing, highly skilled, modern activity. Events need to be played in public, and to begin with at least, players need to selected more on their presentability rather than their gaming skills (I know some people are going to see this as unfair and a form of rigging, but if you want it to become successful....) Also, to ensure that a personality can be consitantly be followed by the public/fans, the game that is chosen needs to reamain
completly unchanged for an entire seasons, with only
minor changes made to the existing game between seasons.
These things are going to require alot of dedication form talented people - and those people aren't going to be able to take part in the competitions. It's going to take a
very long time, and it's unlikely to suceed first time around. But it could be a laugh.
Good luck on the paper, home my humble view helps.