Since I am a sporadic gamer at best, I have been surprised to find myself developing into more than a casual consumer of esports over the past few years. Cognizant of the "n of 1" trap, I sought to validate my overwhelming intuition that esports is on the cusp of the mainstream. I have attempted here to compile a sampling of the core strengths of esports, especially those that make it more attractive than current entertainment models. Even with a few substantial obstacles (also highlighted below), I expect the exponential growth experienced by most major "IRL" sports this past century to be a plausible model for esports in the next one.

Sampling of core strengths

  • Esports allows a linear progression from beginner to pro skill level, with very limited investment, which incentivizes more individuals to participate in the process.
  • Creation of tiered leagues (premier, relegated, etc.) and tournaments very quickly allows deeper proliferation into communities (as seen by the English football model).
  • Live broadcasting of esports has very little incremental cost, even when expanded to large-scale levels like LAN tournaments.
  • The ability for competitors to compete remotely and audiences to watch from home reduces cost of content and protects against structural change like the kind we are currently experiencing with the onset of COVID-19. Case in point, according to a recent report by Verizon, video game usage in the U.S. has risen 75 percent during peak hours (weeknights and weekends).
  • Although viewership has been heavily male dominated and there have been severe discrimination issues (such as Gamergate), no gender-based separation in competitive environments may, over time, attract a broader audience.
  • End-to-end complete control of the experience allows pro leagues and teams to engage fans in-game with decals, in-game tokens, experiences, etc. It's challenging to visualize the scope of this feature, but a parallel would be every baseball field automatically generating a Yankees logo behind home plate 🤯.
  • Tracking of major competitor statistics are fully automated, extremely accessible, and directly comparable to novice players. For example, a Super Smash player at home can compare their combo efficiency against a leading professional on sites like https://tracker.gg, a feature that both increases engagement and allows viewers to better "learn from the pros."
  • Nation / country tournaments, which historically have posted the highest Nielsen ratings (e.g., World Cup, Summer Olympics), are simple to organize (virtually if needed) and potentially more inclusive than traditional sports due to reduced need for expensive training and development resources.
  • Content can be higher energy and more consistent, especially considering that esports titles, in large part, have no interruptions through penalties, breaks, etc.

Immediate concerns

  • Currently, every game developer is looking to get in on a piece of the action, resulting in a hodgepodge of titles. In the future, developers need to think thematically about their potential viewers, i.e., whether esports titles should fall into prevalent themes by interest area. Potential themes could include: strategy game-board (traditional example: American football, esport example: Dota), high-energy, simple to follow (traditional example: soccer, esport example: Rocket League), "in the action" (no traditional option, esport example: Gran Turismo), "head-to-head" (traditional example: boxing, esport example: Super Smash Bros), to name a few.
  • Player and team turnover is high due to linear progression of talent (i.e., there is an efficient market of talent to replace underperforming players) and non-guaranteed nature of many esport salaries. There are examples of stars emerging over time (e.g., Faker in League of Legends), but only in situations with high longevity of the title and continued investment by the organization.
  • Small system or network glitches cause resets or invalidate results, which likely has an effect on viewers' immediate interest and ongoing investment.
  • Most games have not been optimized to allow for breaks (for rest, team coordination, commercials, etc.), likely reducing average watch time (only 2.2 hours per session according to SuperData Research).

Despite these obstacles, I expect esports not only to endure their current challenges, but also to grow substantially over the next several decades.