While sport is usually connoted with coordinative or physical skills, the importance of topics like aesthetics and health has been rising, not only for sports but for society as a whole (Bette, 2017 Dimitriou, 2019 Rail & Harvey, 1995 Sabiston, Pila, Vani, & Thogersen-Ntoumani, 2019 Stichweh, 1990 Thiel, Seiberth, & Mayer, 2013). The differentiation of sport has led to the relevance of the body in sport and exercise becoming more multifaceted. From a historic perspective, physical exercise has commonly been used to form, shape, or discipline the body, with competitive sport following the credo of citius, altius, fortius. The body can be considered the central element for many sports or sports-related activities. Future research can use this review as a basis for scientific approaches to individual phenomena regarding corporeality in esport and inter-corporeality. Players embody digital avatars in the form of esport-specific movements, transfer of norms and ideals, and identification with the in-game characters. Beyond that, the body can be seen as a link between the digital and physical worlds. According to the findings of 47 studies, the body’s role in esport is akin to that in traditional sport, including specific motoric requirements or biometric responses. This paper takes on this issue by exploring existing evidence about the role of the body in esport via a scoping review approach. A significant part of the competition is mediated through digital platforms and the spotlight shifts from the players’ appearance and actions to their digital avatars. Still, critics argue that playing computer games lacks the physicality commonly seen in traditional sports. Because of many parallels with traditional sports, like competitiveness, skill requirements, degree of professionalization, or the way it is portrayed in the media, esport has been adopted as part of the sport canon in many countries. The popularity of competitive computer and videogaming, also known as electronic sport (esport), has been rising rapidly during the past decades.
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