Why Esports is Uniquely Positioned to Survive COVID-19

about 4 years ago

Online video game matches are providing fresh, daily content for esports press and media, whereas traditional sports outlets are relying on COVID-19 reaction pieces or season/career retrospectives.
While the esports as an industry will inevitably take a hit from COVID-19 in terms of lost event revenue from live-events and momentum, the medium of live gaming entertainment could emerge from this blackout brighter than ever.

Viewership on Twitch, the go-to site for game streamers, is up 23% in March to just over 1.2bn (other services such as Microsoft’s Mixer, YouTube’s gaming streams, and Facebook Gaming have seen increased demand as well).
With traditional sports out of the picture, Esports and virtual sports are having their moment in the sun (FOX is adding virtual car racing to its linear TV schedules on FOX Sports).
This could have longer lasting implications once the entertainment industry finds it “new normal”.
However, gaming and esports events have, of course, also felt the impact of COVID-19 (big, well-funded competitions such as Activision-Blizzard’s Overwatch League are usually held in-person in massive arenas like Madison Square Garden) with many events postponed, cancelled or otherwise affected by the coronavirus.
For example, Modern Times Group, the parent company of both digital festival company DreamHack and esports events company ESL, now expects revenues for esports operations to drop 35-45% yoy for H1 2020, with a 25% revenue loss in Q1 alone.