THE WRITING ON (AND OFF) THE WALL CGS GETS IN THE GAME.

Byline: TOM HOFFARTH

Inside a ginormous sound stage on the 20th Century Fox Studios lot in Century City, strewn with guys wearing headsets that look like they're working the McDonald's drive-through window, glued to video monitors and pushing the boundaries of repetitive stress syndrome, Andy Reif will tell you he's sitting on what he likes to call "the next great sports property."

The room has been converted into an NFL-like combine talent evaluation facility for those who consider themselves to be the world's elite video- game players. Dozens of 'em paid a nominal $15 fee to, between Saturday and Monday, try to catch the eye of a general manager assigned to represent one of six teams that'll make up the inaugural Competitive Gaming Series.

Those fortunate enough to be invited to the Playboy Mansion for Tuesday's CGS player draft will consider themselves even luckier if, despite the obvious distractions, someone thinks they're focused enough to be part of the international professional league based in Los Angeles that guarantees a $5 million pool for salaries and bonuses, a new TV deal and provides a built-in demographic advertisers dream about.

Talk about thinking outside the Xbox.

"We're treating this like a true sport," says Reif, the 42-year-old commissioner who may no longer be part of the male 18-to-34 target audience but seems to know what he's talking about -- he spent the previous seven years helping to turn the AVP pro beach volleyball tour from near-dormant status to a revived sports-business model as its chief operations officer.

"As a true sport, we have paid, professional athletes for the first time, competing on teams, in a league, on live television -- that puts us on the same level of all the traditional sports properties."

True enough, but video gaming can hardly be classified as a healthy activity, let alone a sport. Gamers aren't anything more than overweight kids who spend too many hours in their parents' basement pretending to be dragon slayers.

"I hate to get into arguments about what is and isn't a sport, or what constitutes an athlete," Reif says, somehow getting coaxed into one anyway. "We all have our own perceptions. If baseball, football, basketball and hockey were the only sports we knew about when we were kids, those today know as much about snowboarding and other extreme sports that are considered to be now real sports properties, not just hobbies.

"To anyone under 30, they'll have a different answer. To them, competitive gamers are athletes. These players stay fit, they train athletically to sharpen their skills, they scout opponents, they're bright, well-spoken and great role models. They have a lot of the same physical attributes as a NASCAR driver. They just don't get hurt when they virtually crash."

As is explained in greater detail on the league's Web site (www.thecgs.com), the co-ed teams representing L.A., New York, Chicago, Dallas, San Francisco and Charlotte, N.C., vie for a North American title, with the winner eventually facing off in a world championship against England, Asia, Latin America, Australia and the Middle East.

Major sponsors such as Mountain Dew are due to give this venture a jolt of credibility. And a TV deal with the El Segundo-based satellite dish company DirecTV, as well as BSkyB (in the United Kingdom) and STAR (in Asia and Australia), means that starting July 9, there will be two, two-hour live shows in high-definition each week going out to 100million homes around the world, on a telecast using virtual in-game cameras that may elevate interest like lipstick-sized cameras did with televised poker.

"If you can't catch a sporting event live, then it's not a true professional sport," said Eric Shanks, the executive vice president of DirecTV Entertainment. "We're giving the CGS the same star treatment as 'NFL Sunday Ticket."'

If the global effect of video-game playing is pegged at $30 billion, and it transcends all cultures and languages, and participants can theoretically never grow too old to play professionally, Reif's speaking points seem to resonate louder with each twist of the joystick.

And rewind for a second to a study that came out in 2004, which discovered that doctors who spent at least three hours a week playing on their Nintendos or PlayStations had so much better hand-eye coordination that they made about 37 percent fewer mistakes in precision laparoscopic surgery (that which involves operating a camera and instruments controlled by a joystick) and performed the task 27 percent faster than counterparts who didn't play.

Still want your kid to be a doctor? A career first as a professional video-game player can't be all that terrible an investment.

CAPTION(S):

3 photos, 2 box

Photo:

(1) SCOTT NIEDERMAYER

(2) LeBRON JAMES

(3) MICHELLE WIE

Box:

(1) sunday punch

- Tom Hoffarth

(2) The Pop Quiz