There is no doubt that the popularity of e-sports broadcasting is growing. Just this past August, more than 10,000 people gathered in New York to watch the regional championship for the video game “League of Legends.” The increasing popularity of e-sports has resulted in WME/IMG partnering up with TBS to bring live video-game broadcastings to almost 90 million homes in the United States. But is the interest there?
The broadcasting of live video-game competitions has taken off globally. In a recent study released by NewZoo, a gamer research company, the number of e-sports viewers has grown dramatically. There is no doubt that the interest is there globally. But after reviewing the following chart, you will notice that there is only a slight amount of growth with e-sports viewers in North America.
E-Sports Audience
The lack of interest among North American users is the main reason why previous attempts to bring e-sports to primetime television failed. Over the past few years, ESPN has attempted to enter the e-sports market by airing live video-game tournaments. The company quickly discovered that their online digital broadcasts were more popular than the live televised broadcasts. ESPN concluded that there was no interest in watching such events on tv.
When asked how WME/IMG plans to reach viewers across the country, Tobias Sherman, head of WME/IMG’s eSports division, responded by saying “It’s my firm belief that there are many e-sports fans who don’t know they’re e-sports fans yet.” There are some challenges that TBS and WIME/IMG will have to overcome, in order to be successful in airing live video-game tournaments. The stigma of violence being associated with video games is a topic that TBS and WME/IMG will most likely have to address. By televising aggressive and violent games to nearly 90 million homes, parents may get upset and discourage their kids from tuning in.
I have never followed e-sports and I rarely find myself watching television. Like many other millennials, I prefer using on demand media streaming websites, like Netflix. In order for TBS and WME/IMG to be successful, they will need to be able to grasp the attention of millennials throughout North America. The two companies announced that they will be airing live tournaments every Friday night, for 20 consecutive weeks. The companies obviously want to create a following and a large fan base. However, by broadcasting such events on a Friday night, will they truly be able to gain enough popularity?
It will be interesting to see if this attempt to bring e-sports to live television will truly be successful. But what do you think? What makes this broadcasting of e-sports any different from the past? Is there enough popularity for it to stay on television? How many of you would tune in to watch?
Click the links for more information regarding this announcement:
http://fortune.com/2015/09/24/video-game-tournaments-primetime/
http://qz.com/511197/video-game-competitions-are-about-to-become-network-sports-events/
Going against some of the opinions on this topic, I believe that eSports do have a chance to survive on prime time television; maybe not in this day and age, but certainly in the future. Contrary to popular belief, certain eSports have a massive following, namely League of Legends and Counter Strike: Global Offensive. The 2020 League of Legends World Championship had about 3.8 million viewers. I believe in the coming years this number will only increase, due to the massive increase in popularity of the gaming industry. This large platform of viewers will also work wonders for sports betting companies, who will be getting a new stream of revenue. For the time being, eSports may struggle on prime time TV, but in the next 10-20 years, I think they will do just fine. This mostly comes down to the generations of children that will grow up with game controllers and other technologies right out of the womb. With this in mind, I believe the viewership of eSports will dramatically increase within the next 10+ years. This viewership will also rise with the upcoming popularity of newer eSports titles such as Riot Game’s 5v5 tactical shooter, Valorant. Overall, I am a big advocate for eSports to grow and thrive on TV, but I do not think this will be the case for a little while longer. I am excited to see where the eSports industry goes in the future and will be following it’s progress.
Source: https://www.sportspromedia.com/news/league-of-legends-world-championship-2020-final-audience-viewing-figures#:~:text=Esports%20tournament%20racks%20up%20139m,up%20from%20last%20year's%20137m.&text=The%202020%20League%20of%20Legends,year's%20high%20of%203.9%20million.
I find myself watching E-Sports games more and more in the past few months. Starting last week, the League of Legends World Championship started and I noticed that there is a large amount of games per day. This is the main reason why I don’t believe that E-Sports will be functional on a TV broadcast. The only way that it would be possible is if there was a separate channel just for gaming. We wouldn’t be able to use ESPN due to the fact that they have their regularly scheduled sporting events such as football and baseball. The number of viewers would drop significantly because of how the following for E-Sports is a lot smaller than the following of sporting events. The following of E-Sports has grown significantly the past few years and will continue to grow. E-Sports being broadcasting on TV is going to happen, not just at this moment. The only thing separating this from happening is that lack of a large enough following and enough public backing.
Scheduling of LOL World Championship
http://worlds.lolesports.com/en_US/worlds
I love gaming, and it’s quite saddening that my school schedule is so full this semester that I can barely play anymore. When it comes to TV, I don’t see it working in North America. Let’s just throw that out there, but you have to take into account that Starcraft II is by far the biggest game in Asia along with Dota 2 and LoL. I remember reading that they have a channel in South Korea literally based on tournaments like the Starcraft II tournaments. Europe it might work because their fan bases for CS:GO in the past year has grown an astonishing amount. For North America it wouldn’t work on prime time television. What elderly person wants a program to be taken away just to make room for the younger generation just to watch video game tournaments. Twitch has done a fantastic job of being diverse and branching out to different communities. By being diverse people may not understand what people are talking about, so I know ceh9 broadcasts in German for the German community who don’t know what’s really going on in the commentator booth. Yeah a tournament (forget which game) had a higher rating than a game 7 of the Stanley Cup finals match, but what games would work. What would a community want to see. Some may not like Dota 2 or CS:GO or LoL or even Call of Duty. I know the CS:GO community hates every other FPS out there. So there would be conflict and ratings would fluctuate on a daily basis. Also I think people wouldn’t take it very serious on the big time networks like ESPN. Colin Cowherd (who was fired from ESPN due to racial remarks), didn’t know what the heck he was talking about. He thought it was a joke, but the women asking the questions looked disgusted because he made fun of the E-sports community. It’s tough to say how it’ll go in the next 5-10 years, but for now Twitch is doing fine.
l am not a big gamer but many of my friends are. Most of them play DOTA2,League of Legends,
l am not a big gamer but many of my friends are. Most of them play DOTA2,League of Legends,
While I am not a big gamer and I have never played any MOBA games such as League of Legends, DOTA, or Heroes of the Storm, I believe there is an entertainment value to them and e-Sports in general have the potential to be a commercial success. With that said, I do not believe this success is likely to be achieved through American markets or ESPN. The data you provided clearly shows an overwhelmingly high interest in e-Sports from a global perspective compared to North America, and because of this, I do not think American broadcasting companies like ESPN should spend their time and money covering these events. They have already received a lot of backlash and been mocked by many people on the internet for their coverage of such e-Sports, and the general consensus seems to be that most people in America want to watch real sports, not e-Sports. The President of ESPN himself, John Skipper, even took a jab at e-Sports last September calling them not “real sports.” In addition, many ESPN employees made jokes and poked fun at the airing of their Heroes of the Dorm tournament from a few months ago. There seems to be a general lack of respect for e-Sports in the American markets, and because of this, I do not think they can achieve television and commercial success over here (at least not at this point in time).
http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2014/07/18/why-esports-doesnt-need-espn/
I also agree with everyone that E-Sports won’t succeed on TBS or WME/IMG, but I would like to argue that there is a possibility that it can succeed with the right outlook.
TBS plans on releasing a series of Counter Strike Global Offensive. A first-person shooter that features two teams head to head in a best of 30 round game. Most of my enjoyment from watching the CSGO tournaments comes from the personality of the announcers and the hype that comes with close matches.
However, I find that a lot of people who watch these matches like to bet on them using betting websites. They watch the matches just to see if they will make some money from their team winning. This is done through the betting of virtual currency in the form of “skins”. These skins are custom paint jobs that players can use in game to customize their weapons. Prices range from pennies to over a thousand dollars per “skin”.
In conclusion, I believe the success of TBS is in the implementation of the same announcers and atmosphere that already exists in the community. This includes keeping the betting community. These might be the solution to the success of E-Sports on live television.
Clip of the hype that can surround E-Sports (Counter Strike)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiI7FVbpdmY
Betting Website
http://csgolounge.com/
As of right now, I don’t think E-Sports would be able to make it on television, let alone airing it on ESPN. Personally, I am not a huge video game guy, but when I do play video games my friends and I will play Madden and NBA 2k games. And this is where I think E-Sports need to rethink the way they are doing this whole process. So far E-Sports has had major computer games and games I have never even heard of televised, so why would I tune into that?
If I heard that E-Sports was collecting 20 of the best Madden and NBA 2k players I would tune in, as would my friends. I would really love to see some of the best players in the world of those games go head to head. Because even though I think I play pretty well in those games, I have no idea how good some other people are and that is truly a talent which they should be proud of. My point here is that E-Sports needs to broaden there outlook of televising certain games. Computer games of guys just clicking around with a mouse, to me, is just not that interesting and it obviously wasn’t for many other people. But for people going nuts for huge catches and dunks, and things coming down to a last minute hail mary or a fade away 3-pointer at the buzzer, that is something I would watch.
My personal take on the up and coming movement of the e-sports world is that there is a time and a place for the broadcasting of such events that would lead to the overall growth of the industry. The growth of e-sports themselves is undeniable and there is an entire demographic that simply did not exist in the past. The previous attempt by ESPN to broadcast an e-sports event did not generate the viewership or revenue that was hoped by the station, but that does not show a lack of interest in getting involved with e-sports. For example, Colin Cowherd is currently employed by FoxSports (and previously was by ESPN) and is vehemently outspoken on the notion of video games being compared and broadcasted along with physical sports, having recently called e-sports for “booger-eaters” and “nerds”. This tirade (which is now his second of the nature) was a result of the new deal that Turner and IMG announced last week. Although the Espn’s and the Colin Cowherd’s of the world are not open to the change that is coming, I feel as though the new Turner and IMG deal can indeed be successful, even with their Friday night timeslot. That particular timeslot to younger people is primetime television viewing and the younger generation is more involved with video games than ever before, from a personal experience I know my younger brother is very interested in this.
Another market that e-sports has also recently established themselves is the Online gambling/Fantasy realm. FanDuel and DraftKings are the two biggest fantasy sports site’s at the moment, with the two competing daily. DraftKings recently acquired a company Vulcun, who has a 54% share of the e-sports market and within a week later FanDuel had purchased the rights to AlphaDraft, another e-sports company who capped 43% of the same market. Gambling is estimated to be worth about 250 mil this year, with that number expecting to hit over 20 billion dollars by the year 2020. The future of e-sports is yet to be decided but despite the haters, there is definitely a ton of potential.
Attached are some sources/relevant links
Cowherd’s Rant http://ftw.usatoday.com/2015/09/colin-cowherd-esports-rant-fox
NBA Player Gordon Hayward’s (an avid gamer) Retort http://www.sbnation.com/lookit/2015/9/29/9421233/gordon-hayward-colin-cowherd-esports-rant
Alphadraft Info http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/fanduel-acquires-alphadraft-to-up-the-ante-on-esports-betting-industry/0156616
E-Sports has a surprisingly big fan base in my opinion, much bigger than I expected. For me it’s hard to see it simply because I’m not a big gamer, yet a good friend of mine would rather watch an E-Gaming event rather than a sports game (complete opposite). I think it comes down to what game has the biggest user base, then expand on that. ESPN’s audience is mostly males who are looking at sports such as football, basketball, and baseball. If they would broadcast an E-Sports event of a game closely related to that, such as Madden or NBA 2K series, I think they would have more success because they’re most likely games that their audience already plays and can relate to. The few games that I play, such as Clash of Clans, I like to watch videos of to learn off of other users. the same can be applied to this scenario.
ESPN highly promotes madden, but don’t broadcast the actual game play. A few years ago I remember they used to have a TV show on ESPN 2 about a group of people who would compete in a Madden tournament called Madden Nation. I used to watch it when it was on and I was younger because I could relate to it and could learn about the game by watching it. If they would bring this back to start and eventually expand it to other similar games, they could broaden their audience to start including other games such as League of Legends or DOTA.
The only information I could find on the TV show was this Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madden_Nation
While I am not a big gamer and I have never played any MOBA games such as League of Legends, DOTA, or Heroes of the Storm, I believe there is an entertainment value to them and e-Sports in general have the potential to be a commercial success. With that said, I do not believe this success is likely to be achieved through American markets or ESPN. The data you provided clearly shows an overwhelmingly high interest in e-Sports from a global perspective compared to North America, and because of this, I do not think American broadcasting companies like ESPN should spend their time and money covering these events. They have already received a lot of backlash and been mocked by many people on the internet for their coverage of such e-Sports, and the general consensus seems to be that most people in America want to watch real sports, not e-Sports. The President of ESPN himself, John Skipper, even took a jab at e-Sports last September calling them not “real sports.” In addition, many ESPN employees made jokes and poked fun at the airing of their Heroes of the Dorm tournament from a few months ago. There seems to be a general lack of respect for e-Sports in the American markets, and because of this, I do not think they can achieve television and commercial success over here (at least not at this point in time).
Source: http://ftw.usatoday.com/2015/04/espn-esports-heroes-of-the-dorm-reaction
I read your article with vivid interest. These days, e-sports is becoming the wallpaper of life. League of legend(LOL), DOTA, and Starcraft 2 are very famous in the world. And this like game content will be accessible anywhere and at anytime.
Revenue from e-sports was increased more than twice, each year. Moreover, analysts say the market has a lot of room to grow. In the past, it was impossible to imagine to earn the money through game. At that time, the game was just a hobby or free service, it was not business. But the times have changed. These days, the game company is offering cable television firms 12-month contracts that demand broadcasting fees of 10 million per league. For now, the game industry is thought of as a big bonanza.
In my generation, StarCraft is credited for the first emergence of e-sports in South Korea. A few years ago, the first version of Starcraft stopped to support by Blizzard Entertainment because the Blizzard Entertainment made a Debut second version. However, there are still Starcraft tournaments in South Korea because Starcraft is more than a game to them. These cultures created a new occupation as a pro-gamer. Pro-gamers in Korea are as popular as a actors starring in prime-time tv shows like movie stars or famous singer. According to e-sports news, the U.S. issued Kim Dong-hwan, a professional StarCraft II player, a five-year P-1A visa. In addition, the first version of StarCraft did wonders for the Korean economy.
In conclusion, they will truly be able to gain enough popularity by broadcasting such events on a Friday night like South Korea. The content is enough to show.
Read more:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/20/technology/league-of-legends-south-korea-epicenter-esports.html
http://eune.lolesports.com/articles/surprising-esports-culture-korea
I personally do not think E-Sports can thrive on prime time television. The viewership and interest is definitely there as shown by numerous statistics. It is incredible to think that over 134 million people have watched E-Sports world wide. Out of that 134 million people, most have been watching in person or online. I think the problem is that TV is not a good platform for watching E-sports. Most viewers are gamers themselves and are already on their computers or are just used to seeing the game on their computer screen. Other viewers would rather have the excitement of going to a live event, no different than a football game. For these reasons I do not see E-Sports taking over prime time television, but will definitely have a presence on TV. Only time will tell though, because TBS has provided a case study of sorts that will be interesting to watch.
That being said I do not think E-Sports needs a TV presence. As you have pointed out most E-sports viewers are Millennials and prefer streaming compared to TV. The following chart (https://media.licdn.com/mpr/mpr/p/1/005/088/1e6/03214c6.jpg) shows that many people who watch E- Sports have a subscription to a major streaming company such as Netflix. The popularity for E-Sports already exists, and we know most fans already spend their time streaming content they want to watch. So why is the push to get E-Sports on ESPN and not Netflix? I believe there is more potential for growth with live online streaming than there is with TV. The links below really got me thinking on this topic and have good supporting materials about E-Sports in general.
Who would agree that Streaming is a better alternative for the sport than TV? Are there any better solutions that are being overlooked?
http://fortune.com/2015/09/28/turner-broadcasting-esports/
http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2014/07/18/why-esports-doesnt-need-espn/
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20140918071634-23089113-esports-reaches-tipping-point-as-media-brands-scramble-to-get-involved
As someone who is into gaming, I can tell you that E-Sports on live TV will most likely not work, at least right away. I often find myself watching others play games online whether recreational or for competition. I have never turned to the television to view these things. I usually refer to Youtube or Twitch. I believe each television channel needs to have at least one very specific genre, but no more than 2. ESPN should remain about athletic sports because that is what people turn to most of the time to watch that. TBS, in my opinion, is more for comedy sitcoms. When I think of TBS or ESPN, video games is closer to the bottom. Other channels like FOX and NBC play a numerous amount of genres, from news, to sports, to sitcoms because they have to appeal to those who do not have more than basic cable. In my opinion, in order for E-Sports to be successful on television, it would need its own channel dedicated to it.