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Call it competitive gaming, eSports, or just big business. "The big events are already bigger than the biggest events in sports," says Twitch COO Kevin Lin:
The industry is anchored by what is referred to as multiplayer online battle arena games, like the League of Legends, where one or several players face off in a digital arena. Watching people play professionally has been popular in Asia for years, but is now also gaining steam in the U.S.
In fact, those powering the industry say it's well on its way to becoming the next major professional sport alongside football and baseball. The biggest tournaments are already filling entire arenas, including New York City's Madison Square Garden.
The average Twitch user spends two hours a day engaging with the site. Lin said it's not unusual for some users to stretch to the five-hour mark for some of the more popular players and events. In total, Twitch logs more than 100 million unique viewers a month, with those viewers racking up a collective 20 billion minutes of viewing time of the more than 11 million videos that are broadcast. The Twitch app has been downloaded more than 23 million times since its launch in 2011.
In 2014, Riot Games' League of Legends world championship had roughly 27 million streaming views, more than the average viewership of the individual games of the World Series and roughly the same as the amount of people that tuned in for this year's NCAA final.
Last month, ESPN 2 made history by airing the finals of Blizzard Entertainment's collegiate "Heroes of the Dorm" competition on TV for the first time.
Original Submission
(Score: 4, Informative) by looorg on Sunday May 31 2015, @11:26AM
I don't know where Kevin Lin gets his numbers from but a quote like "The big events are already bigger than the biggest events in sports." is just plain false and wishful thinking on his part. The number mentioned in the article is for LOL and is at 27 million viewers, ("In 2014, Riot Games’ “League of Legends” world championship had roughly 27 million streaming views, more than the average viewership of individual games of the World Series and roughly the same as the number of people who tuned in for this year’s NCAA basketball final."). So the big events in gaming are more like college basketball and it was larger then last years final game of the world series (23.5 million viewers for game seven, plus another six games of about half that each). Those are worldwide STREAM numbers compared to viewers on television in the USA alone, they send american sportsgames live or close to live on TV over on this side of the pond to -- if you like being up in the early morning to watch a game. Still the LOL stream numbers are a drop in the bucket compared to the really BIG events such as the Superbowl, latest one draw 115 million viewers in the US alone. 27 million viewers is about half of what a NFL conference championship game draws. An average season game in the NFL is 17 million.
In time their numbers might rise. But it's a long way away from being bigger then the biggest events in sport. Unless you have some really weird idea what those biggest events are. If I was forced to watch one of those games I'd still prefer the Superbowl.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Sunday May 31 2015, @11:37AM
the biggest events in sports.
The Biggest Event in Sports is exactly like the Biggest Event in High School where its merely the next major event, nobody really cares on a percentage basis, and an hour after "it", whatever "it" is, everyone has forgotten the old event ever happened and the new, next, Biggest Event is already top of the charts. The Biggest Event in Prime Time TV follows a similar PR curve. I think the original author was being highly sarcastic with that part.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by vux984 on Sunday May 31 2015, @01:02PM
Superbowl isn't really the biggest event in sports either. For that your probably looking at FIFA; the world cup 2014 is estimated to have drawn between 1/2 billion to 3/4 billion viewers. Some estimates put it at a close to a billion.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Hawkwind on Sunday May 31 2015, @03:04PM
http://www.bbc.com/sport/0/cricket/31479487 [bbc.com]
(Score: 2) by looorg on Sunday May 31 2015, @07:58PM
True, but since Lin confined himself to American examples I stuck with that. Naturally the Superbowl is quite small compared to the world cup of Soccer.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bradley13 on Sunday May 31 2015, @02:15PM
The LOL championships had only 27 million viewers, vs. 114 million for the Superbowl, but that's a lot more than a "drop in a bucket", unless your bucket only holds 4 drops. Also, those 114 million viewers in the US *are* the worldwide audience. Trust me, no one else watches American football. There are a few larger events (for sports that are actually played worldwide), like soccer.
None of which invalidates the point: the LOL championships are already larger than many popular sporting events, and likely to continue growing.
The one problems that eSports have got to work on is their watchability. I've played LOL enough to understand how the game works - I did this, because one of my kids plays competitively, and I wanted to be able to follow his games. Even so, the action on the screen happens impossibly fast, with a gazillion effects overlapping, and a critical, game-changing team fight may last just a couple of seconds. Since the game has no breaks, there's never an opportunity to go back, and see things in slow motion. For someone who hasn't played the game, it's even more difficult - honestly, I don't suppose a non-player can really follow the action at all.
This isn't fixable for LOL, but it might be fixable in some future game with different rules. Basically, the core action has to be more strategic, and less concentrated in time, so that a casual audience can enjoy it.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 2) by wantkitteh on Sunday May 31 2015, @11:45PM
I live in England and I've watched the Superbowl for the last 5-6 years running. Going to live Superbowl all-nighters is getting increasingly popular outside the US. However, American football is played in fairly narrow timeslots over the course of a week. In terms of audience person-hours, American football is utterly dominated by League of Legends alone, simple because it's played and streamed live 24/7/365.
How does the saying go? Something about damn lies and statistics?
I wouldn't want to guess whether real football (or Soccer as Americans call it) is above or below that figure right now, I could see it going either way. Okay, the sportsball probably hits a higher peak for specific events, and it's arguable that many televised sports have actually had their rules changed specifically to cater to broadcasters and a television audience. This is already happening for online games - World of Tanks has had major changes to it's pro format recently to move away from the tense, drawn-out chess match it was previously and towards faster action with more rounds. Why? Because some people found watching it boring.