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I wonder if the prominence of esports is cutting into ESPN as well. Hell just yesterday there were over a million viewers on Twitch[1], in large due to a major

by jjcm 10y ago

I wonder if the prominence of esports is cutting into ESPN as well. Hell just yesterday there were over a million viewers on Twitch[1], in large due to a major esports tournament for dota. League of Legends regularly hits those numbers and beyond for their tournaments. In the past esports were kinda sideshow attractions, but now the production quality and audience numbers are quickly catching up to traditional sports. On top of that their distribution models are more consumer friendly. I'm sure there's overlap of people who watch both, but I wonder if the next generation of kids will defer to esports over traditional ones. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/DotA2/comments/68heiu/600k_viewers_wow/ https://www.reddit.com/r/DotA2/comments/68heiu/600k_viewers_...

csydas 10y ago
Probably not like you're thinking. ESPN already has picked up esports and typically the esports tourneys don't overlap with major sports events. This is likely a conscious decision on the part of Riot, Valve, and so on, to ensure they're not competing with audiences. ESPN has tried to adapt to esports, but it met resistance from its audience and its own commentators not really accepting it. There was this famous career ending rants [1] that is just one of many from the ESPN commentators - viewer comments usually don't stray too far from such thoughts. esports fans seem pretty distinct from the core fans of ESPN, and ESPN deciding to cover it on their sub-channels (ESPN2, etc) is their attempt to reach out to those numbers and to get eyes on the channel. The internal rejection of esports doesn't help at all for ESPN who I'm sure is dying for the kinds of numbers that the Twitch and Youtube events get, especially since there is so much down-time between matches with virtually no advertisements, which likely makes the business side of ESPN wince quite a bit. But no, I don't think esports is causing problems for ESPN in the sense that it's cutting in; ESPN would be HAPPY to get on the esports train if they could. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzL21gHwt1I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzL21gHwt1I
douche 10y ago
If there is any overlap between people who are interested in traditional sports leagues, and competitive Starcraft/League of Legends fans, it has to be very small. To be honest, I think that the more big-tent ESPN tries to go, the more likely they are to fail. There are periods of the year when nothing is happening in the big four US sports leagues, and Sportscenter becomes unwatchable - I'm just not going to tune in to watch highlights of the XYZ Open tennis tournament, or some golf tournament, or whatever other extra-niche sporting event is occurring in those months of the year. At one point, ESPN was farming that kind of stuff out to ESPN2, along with trick billiards competitions, professional bowling, and what have you, but has instead decided to triple-down on hot takes and outrage.

by jjcm 10y ago

csydas 10y ago

Probably not like you're thinking. ESPN already has picked up esports and typically the esports tourneys don't overlap with major sports events. This is likely a conscious decision on the part of Riot, Valve, and so on, to ensure they're not competing with audiences. ESPN has tried to adapt to esports, but it met resistance from its audience and its own commentators not really accepting it. There was this famous career ending rants [1] that is just one of many from the ESPN commentators - viewer comments usually don't stray too far from such thoughts. esports fans seem pretty distinct from the core fans of ESPN, and ESPN deciding to cover it on their sub-channels (ESPN2, etc) is their attempt to reach out to those numbers and to get eyes on the channel. The internal rejection of esports doesn't help at all for ESPN who I'm sure is dying for the kinds of numbers that the Twitch and Youtube events get, especially since there is so much down-time between matches with virtually no advertisements, which likely makes the business side of ESPN wince quite a bit. But no, I don't think esports is causing problems for ESPN in the sense that it's cutting in; ESPN would be HAPPY to get on the esports train if they could. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzL21gHwt1I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzL21gHwt1I

douche 10y ago

If there is any overlap between people who are interested in traditional sports leagues, and competitive Starcraft/League of Legends fans, it has to be very small. To be honest, I think that the more big-tent ESPN tries to go, the more likely they are to fail. There are periods of the year when nothing is happening in the big four US sports leagues, and Sportscenter becomes unwatchable - I'm just not going to tune in to watch highlights of the XYZ Open tennis tournament, or some golf tournament, or whatever other extra-niche sporting event is occurring in those months of the year. At one point, ESPN was farming that kind of stuff out to ESPN2, along with trick billiards competitions, professional bowling, and what have you, but has instead decided to triple-down on hot takes and outrage.