Will Esports ever be more popular than football?

Fed up talking videogames? Why?

Will Esports be more popular than football?

Poll ended at Sat Apr 28, 2018 5:59 pm

Yes
2
6%
No
33
94%
 
Total votes: 35
NickSCFC

PostRe: Will Esports ever be more popular than football?
by NickSCFC » Mon Apr 23, 2018 11:01 am

Cheeky Devlin wrote:I don't see them ever becoming bigger than Football (Not for a very, very long time anyway) but definitely see them surpassing smaller sports. Darts, Snooker etc I would imagine will shortly (if not already) be surpassed by them in terms of worldwide viewers.


Do young people have an interest in darts? Always seems to be something older people enjoy watching and seems to be linked with the demise of the local pub.

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PostRe: Will Esports ever be more popular than football?
by Photek » Mon Apr 23, 2018 11:07 am

Nope. I enjoyed the Halo Championship last weekend but it’ll never be as big.

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PostRe: Will Esports ever be more popular than football?
by Moggy » Mon Apr 23, 2018 11:14 am

I can’t wait for eHooligans to start. I reckon the Starcraft Casuals will kick the gooseberry fool out of the Halo Hit Squad.

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PostRe: Will Esports ever be more popular than football?
by Cheeky Devlin » Mon Apr 23, 2018 11:15 am

NickSCFC wrote:
Cheeky Devlin wrote:I don't see them ever becoming bigger than Football (Not for a very, very long time anyway) but definitely see them surpassing smaller sports. Darts, Snooker etc I would imagine will shortly (if not already) be surpassed by them in terms of worldwide viewers.


Do young people have an interest in darts? Always seems to be something older people enjoy watching and seems to be linked with the demise of the local pub.

No idea. Probably not.

I was talking in terms of overall viewers worldwide. I'd imagine that esports will soon surpass those of Dart, Snooker etc (If they haven't already).

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PostRe: Will Esports ever be more popular than football?
by NickSCFC » Mon Apr 23, 2018 11:56 am

I don't see it topping any of these, might make it to 11th though.

These are all subject to trends btw, basketball is huge among kids in China and could easily take 3rd spot, where as rugby is in decline worldwide.

https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/wha ... world.html

1 Soccer 4.0 Billion
2 Cricket 2.5 Billion
3 Field Hockey 2 Billion
4 Tennis 1 Billion
5 Volleyball 900 Million
6 Table Tennis 875 Million
7 Basketball 825 Million
8 Baseball 500 Million
9 Rugby 475 Million
10. Golf 450 Million

Last edited by NickSCFC on Mon Apr 23, 2018 12:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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PostRe: Will Esports ever be more popular than football?
by KK » Mon Apr 23, 2018 12:03 pm

Darts is in the top 3 most watched sports on Sky Sports in the U.K.. Massive in Germany and Holland. Not sure about the rest of the world. Its more popular now than it has ever been in its history, but hasn’t taken the world by storm so could be passed by eSports overall.

Snooker meanwhile is enormous in China - number 1 market, exceeding 200 million viewers for the finals.

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PostRe: Will Esports ever be more popular than football?
by bear » Mon Apr 23, 2018 12:37 pm

Cricket and Rugby are both slightly hamstrung by so much of the power in the game being held by a handful of countries who only want to line their own nest.
It took Italy and Argentina absolutely bloody ages to gain entry into the Six Nations and The Rugby Championship. Romania's potential as a rugby country has been lost to a certain degree and Georgia could easily go the same way if the structures don't change to offer them some way into a revised Six Nations.


Ireland have been halfway decent at cricket for a while now but they were only given full test status recently so it's possible the momentum built on the back of their golden generation might ultimately be lost.

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PostRe: Will Esports ever be more popular than football?
by OrangeRKN » Mon Apr 23, 2018 12:51 pm

I guess one advantage e-sports have is that watching them at home on your computer is really no different to watching them "live" in person. Potentially that's also a disadvantage though - the experience of live sport is often influenced so much by where you are sitting in the stadium. From experience, watching ice hockey down at the boards is completely different to watching it from the rafters.

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PostRe: Will Esports ever be more popular than football?
by Pedz » Mon Apr 23, 2018 12:53 pm

OrangeRakoon wrote:I guess one advantage e-sports have is that watching them at home on your computer is really no different to watching them "live" in person. Potentially that's also a disadvantage though - the experience of live sport is often influenced so much by where you are sitting in the stadium. From experience, watching ice hockey down at the boards is completely different to watching it from the rafters.



I've never minded where I've been sat tbh, I've been in a variety of p[laces when I watched the rugby when I was much younger. The thing that was best about watching it in person compared to on TV was the atmosphere.

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PostRe: Will Esports ever be more popular than football?
by OrangeRKN » Mon Apr 23, 2018 12:55 pm

Sure, I reckon atmosphere is going to be a thing for both traditional sports and e-sports though.

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PostRe: Will Esports ever be more popular than football?
by abcd » Mon Apr 23, 2018 1:24 pm

NickSCFC wrote:I don't see it topping any of these, might make it to 11th though.

These are all subject to trends btw, basketball is huge among kids in China and could easily take 3rd spot, where as rugby is in decline worldwide.

https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/wha ... world.html

1 Soccer 4.0 Billion
2 Cricket 2.5 Billion
3 Field Hockey 2 Billion
4 Tennis 1 Billion
5 Volleyball 900 Million
6 Table Tennis 875 Million
7 Basketball 825 Million
8 Baseball 500 Million
9 Rugby 475 Million
10. Golf 450 Million


How is this data gathered?

I would never have put field hockey in at number 3.

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PostRe: Will Esports ever be more popular than football?
by Pedz » Mon Apr 23, 2018 1:29 pm

abcd wrote:
NickSCFC wrote:I don't see it topping any of these, might make it to 11th though.

These are all subject to trends btw, basketball is huge among kids in China and could easily take 3rd spot, where as rugby is in decline worldwide.

https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/wha ... world.html

1 Soccer 4.0 Billion
2 Cricket 2.5 Billion
3 Field Hockey 2 Billion
4 Tennis 1 Billion
5 Volleyball 900 Million
6 Table Tennis 875 Million
7 Basketball 825 Million
8 Baseball 500 Million
9 Rugby 475 Million
10. Golf 450 Million


How is this data gathered?

I would never have put field hockey in at number 3.


Nick counted everyone in the world all by himself, and he didn't even use his fingers.

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PostRe: Will Esports ever be more popular than football?
by OrangeRKN » Mon Apr 23, 2018 1:33 pm

Field hockey is massive in India right? I would guess India is why cricket and field hockey are both so high.

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PostRe: Will Esports ever be more popular than football?
by Lex-Man » Tue Apr 24, 2018 2:50 pm

Brerlappin wrote:If esports are as popular when its current target audience (teens-early 20s) are as old as we are (late 30s, early 40s), i can see it at least sitting alongside sports in the mainstream TV sector. The amount of kids who watch twitch and esports and all that gooseberry fool is a strawberry floating massive audience and eventually TV will cotton on to that and start pandering to them. Personally i think its dumb as gooseberry fool and even as an avid gamer i wouldn't watch it, but its what the kids love, and eventually those kids will be adults and they'll be the ones choosing what we see on TV.


But the biggest twitch streams are only watched by around 4 million people, it's not really that big.

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PostRe: Will Esports ever be more popular than football?
by Moggy » Tue Apr 24, 2018 3:05 pm

lex-man wrote:
Brerlappin wrote:If esports are as popular when its current target audience (teens-early 20s) are as old as we are (late 30s, early 40s), i can see it at least sitting alongside sports in the mainstream TV sector. The amount of kids who watch twitch and esports and all that gooseberry fool is a strawberry floating massive audience and eventually TV will cotton on to that and start pandering to them. Personally i think its dumb as gooseberry fool and even as an avid gamer i wouldn't watch it, but its what the kids love, and eventually those kids will be adults and they'll be the ones choosing what we see on TV.


But the biggest twitch streams are only watched by around 4 million people, it's not really that big.


That’s the thing that will severely limit the popularity ratings of esports if you are comparing to something like football. There are loads of different games out there, lots of different streamers out there and things are constantly changing with brand new games coming out. How could you even begin to compare the audience figures?

If you are looking at the UK football audience, then you are just looking at Sky and BT (with the odd BBC televised game). With the UK esport audience you have a vast number of different genres of games, is it fair to compare football to a combined total of viewers for FPS and RTS game? Do you count recorded YouTube videos in the same way as “highlights”, even though the YouTube videos might be years old? Would only Twitch streamers count for the “live” audience, or would other streams need to be factored in?

I don’t think esports will ever be as popular as football and I also don’t think you could ever accurately compare the two either.

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PostRe: Will Esports ever be more popular than football?
by Moggy » Wed Apr 25, 2018 12:44 pm

Paris 2024 Olympic organisers are "deep in talks" about including esports as a demonstration sport at the Games, says the International esports Federation.

The Paris bid team said it would discuss introducing esports with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) before being named host in September.

Competitive video gaming will be a medal event at the 2022 Asian Games.

"It won't be possible to be an official discipline," said IeSF acting secretary general Leopold Chung.

"But to be a demonstration title within the Paris Olympics."

IOC president Thomas Bach said on Thursday it would be a "red line" for the organisation that no video games deemed to include "the promotion of violence" or "any kind of demonstration" would be permitted at the Olympics.

In October, the IOC said it is open to exploring the possibility of including esports in future Games, before stating at a November summit it "could be considered a sporting activity" but "must not infringe" on Olympic values in order to be recognised as a sport.

Chung said the support of the Paris organising committee will send a "stronger message" to the IOC that esports could be a demonstration sport at the 2024 Games.

"Paris would one day like to become an esports hub for Europe," he added.

"There are great engagement numbers, great fan numbers who live in France and especially in Paris, who would definitely want to come to an esports game."

The IeSF says its aim is to "work consistently to promote esport as a true sport beyond language, race and cultural barriers."

The organisation has 46 member nations and hosts an annual world championship.

Esports generated £400m in revenue in 2016, has a global audience of about 320 million. It is expected to generate more than £1bn in global revenue and almost double its audience to nearly 600 million people by 2020.

It is set to appear as a demonstration event for the first time at this year's Asian Games in Jakarta, Indonesia, before making its debut as a full event at the multi-sport tournament at Hangzhou, China in 2022.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/olympics/43893891

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PostRe: Will Esports ever be more popular than football?
by Lex-Man » Wed Apr 25, 2018 12:55 pm

From that article it looks like FIFA 2024 will be the first game to be as big as football.

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PostRe: Will Esports ever be more popular than football?
by Moggy » Wed Apr 25, 2018 12:59 pm

lex-man wrote:From that article it looks like FIFA 2024 will be the first game to be as big as football.


:lol:

It’ll be interesting to see what organisations like the Olympics decides is violence. Doom would obviously count as a little bit violent, but would that also stop RTS games? Would Mario jumping on enemies heads count as violence? Would the Olympics be happy to have boxing as a real event, but ban EA's Fight Night?

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PostRe: Will Esports ever be more popular than football?
by That » Wed Apr 25, 2018 1:02 pm

I would think 'violence' in a videogame context would be excessive blood and gore. But you're right, it'll be interesting to see what they decide. If they're very strict then it may drive the development of new, sanitised games to use as e-sports, maybe? Instead of an FPS it would be a paintball game. In an RTS, enemy units just disappear rather than blowing up. And so on. Or maybe those modes could be added to existing e-sport games.

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PostRe: Will Esports ever be more popular than football?
by Lex-Man » Wed Apr 25, 2018 1:08 pm

Karl wrote:I would think 'violence' in a videogame context would be excessive blood and gore. But you're right, it'll be interesting to see what they decide. If they're very strict then it may drive the development of new, sanitised games to use as e-sports, maybe? Instead of an FPS it would be a paintball game. In an RTS, enemy units just disappear rather than blowing up. And so on. Or maybe those modes could be added to existing e-sport games.


Doesn't COD have a paintball mode?

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