Last week, 12 European football clubs broke away from their traditional European cups in hope of forming a European Super League. The reasons were mainly to do with both money and better competitiveness, yet there was an interesting by-line in the conversation- the increasing disinterest of the sport by younger audiences. The proposal to sort this was shorter games, and whether this would have been successful is unclear, but it does highlight a greater problem for traditional sports. For much of the last century, sports have pretty much dominated as the main form of entertainment. Books, film and music all hold significant roles in our society, but the competitiveness, culture and sheer amount of money in sport have seen it continue lifting the entertainment trophy. However, for the last decade, this power has looked to be dwindling. Sports fans are getting older, owners of franchises have been looking to monopolise entire sports, and significantly many fans are being priced out of their interest. And yet, there is another reason- e-sports.
For those who do not know, e-sports are essentially competitive video gaming. Like traditional sports, various teams battle out for wins, and fans watch from home. They're similar in most respects, however, e-sports has a few qualities which render it a serious threat. Firstly, e-sports have an insane amount of action. Think of traditional sports, and how often you are bored watching them. Football has long passages of play where nothing happens, cricket and tennis games can last all day, and American Football is filled with enough countless stoppages and ad breaks to drive Gandhi mad. E-sports, however, have none stop action. Rather than following one ball like most traditional sports, e-sports often instead follow individual players as they attempt to achieve a goal- meaning that there is a constant confrontation between teams, and there is never a moment of rest from the action. In a world where younger people are increasingly requiring faster entertainment, the world of sports is lacking behind- and e-sports are budding to take their place.
Tying in with this, the 24/7 capabilities of e-sports provide an incredible advantage. Picture this; you watch your favourite sports team on a Sunday, and then you tune into training videos for the next few days, whilst also enjoying fun entertaining content featuring your favourite players on YouTube, all the while your team plays again on the next Wednesday. This would be insane right? Modern athletes cannot do that much. And yet this is something that happens every week in the world of e-sports. Professional e-sports players not only play competitively every few days, but they also record fun entertaining videos on YouTube alongside, whilst fans at home can also enjoy playing their favourite video game. This pretty much-unlimited amount of content is immediately available for all fans. Now, some of you might say this is too much, no fan wants that much content. Well, I would ask, when was the last time you spent hours on YouTube watching videos of your favourite sports games, played your favourite sport all day, and finished a game wishing for more? Pretty often, right? Well, that’s key- e-sports fans don’t have to watch or play their games all the time, but they have enough content to enjoy the amount they want- that doesn’t exist for any traditional sports.
Up until now I have very much related this article to watching people play sports/e-sports, yet I have not related my argument to playing either. I will attempt to answer how e-sports can challenge the act of playing sports casually, but first I’d like to talk about traditional football. Football, or soccer as it is called in America, is the worlds biggest sport, having billions of fans on every continent. It's quite a simple reason as to why really, it can be played virtually everywhere with nothing but a ball. Think tennis, golf, basketball- all require some form of complicated equipment and often a specific court, yet football can be played anywhere with nothing too troublesome. It's why it dominates traditional sport. E-sports can potentially challenge this because millions already have everyday access to a gaming console, and unlike traditional sports, there is little fatigue involved meaning that e-sports can tap into football’s anytime ethos. Yes, for new fans consoles initially require a lot of money, but no more than a standard Sky Sports subscription- and once bought you have virtually endless playtime.
I will conclude with an ambiguous tone. There is no doubt that traditional sports still exert dominance over the industry- the amount of fans, money and coverage ensures this- but there has been a downturn recently. There seems to be an opening forming within the industry, and whether e-sports can exploit this, or whether traditional sports will change their model to succeed is unclear. I’m not really arguing that e-sports will conquer in the next decade, but the next forty years? Potentially.
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