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Video Game Streaming as Big as Major Sporting Event Viewership

posted by martyb on Sunday May 31 2015, @07:27AM   Printer-friendly
from the watch-it! dept.

takyon writes:

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.

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  • (Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 31 2015, @08:29AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 31 2015, @08:29AM (#190356)

    And yet, actual footage of war is like, wait, there are wars for real? Is that what those guys were doing overseas? I thought they were on vacation somewhere with beaches and sand and stuff. I support the troops because that's what all us guys around the dorm do, we support the troops. For the freedoms and beer.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 31 2015, @08:40AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 31 2015, @08:40AM (#190357)

    I don't think a LoL match can be compared to actual wars...

    • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 31 2015, @09:50AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 31 2015, @09:50AM (#190367)

      There are actual wars? I'm too busy watching the Circuses and eating the Bread to notice the actual wars. Support the Troops! Whatever it is they do, I don't want to know, bro.

  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by t-3 on Sunday May 31 2015, @09:51AM

    by t-3 (4907) on Sunday May 31 2015, @09:51AM (#190369)

    Everyone (pretty much) likes watching "war games". Competitive fighting is still huge and most team sports are basically highly abstracted warfare. Paintball and airsoft are very popular as well.

    • (Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 31 2015, @10:31AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 31 2015, @10:31AM (#190374)

      Flagheads versus Ragheads! Holy Obama versus Unholy Osama! In God We Trust! Death To Allah! Bible Be Praised! Flush A Koran today!

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 31 2015, @10:47AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 31 2015, @10:47AM (#190375)

    Where can I find actual war streamed live with commentary? Oh right, it doesn't exist.

    Imagine, betting on soldiers with helmet cams. If this actually existed, it would be huge.

    • (Score: 3, Funny) by Ryuugami on Sunday May 31 2015, @11:58AM

      by Ryuugami (2925) on Sunday May 31 2015, @11:58AM (#190386)

      That would add a whole new level of excitement to "hey ma, our house's on the TV".

      --
      If a shit storm's on the horizon, it's good to know far enough ahead you can at least bring along an umbrella. - D.Weber