Will Real Sports Lift Esports to the Next Level?

With the world in lockdown, there’s a void to fill. Esports, including digitized real sport, is already plugging some of the gap. And it could be that the crisis proves the catalyst for digital sport – backed by TV and celebrity endorsement – taking esports as a whole to the next level.

In the last few months, daily viewings of “multiplayer online battle arenas” (MOBAs) and “shooters” esports on the Twitch esports platform have soared, rising from 1.4 million daily in February 2020 to 2.5 million in April (see figure 1).

But sports games, too, have surged in popularity. Motor racing has led the way, with the eNASCAR iracing in the US recording 1.4 million viewers in late March. And in the UK, nearly 5 million people tuned in to a digitally simulated Grand National, Europe’s most valuable jump race, at the beginning of April.

Figure 1: Esports viewing has surged during lockdown

Even before the pandemic, the world of physical sport was gradually spreading into digital. Many football clubs have launched esports teams, for example, and the Formula 1 Esports Series has been attracting tens of thousands of gamers each year since starting in 2017. But the crisis has given this trend a huge push, attracting people for whom video gaming is an alien concept to participate or watch for the first time.
So, will the crisis make digital sport a new driver for growth in esports in general? We think so. Sports games currently only make up a relatively small part of an industry historically dominated by MOBAs or shooters, such as League of Legends or Call of Duty respectively. So there is huge room for growth (see figure 2).

Figure 2: Sports games viewings have room to grow

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