ESPN: The Worldwide Leader of eSports
Patrick Brown, Associate Writer
“It’s not a sport — it’s a competition. Chess is a competition. Checkers is a competition. Mostly, I’m interested in doing real sports,” said president of ESPN, John Skipper, when talking about eSports.
His comments, made in 2014, make the fact that ESPN is starting to show eSports material on their programs very ironic.
If Skipper clearly doesn’t think eSports is a “real” sport, then why include it in ESPN’s programs?
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ESPN finally saw the potential of what eSports viewers can bring to their company and the overall aspect of the sports world. If eSports viewers watch some of the events on ESPN, they might stay and look at the other sports too.
Newzoo gave some estimates for the next few years in the world of eSports. They state that eSports are over a quarter of a billion dollar business, but, by 2018, that estimate will jump to nearly three quarters of a billion dollar business.
James Tucker, a sophomore at North Greenville University, said that ESPN is helping both ESPN and eSports.
“ESPN has a huge audience as it is, so for eSports to be recognized and get mixed in with all of the other sports in the world, it has to help them out,” said Tucker.
“It doesn’t take much to see the rise in popularity of these types events, and ESPN recognized that as a business and wanted a way to get into the world of eSports for business purposes,” Tucker added.
Newzoo stated that eSports draws a regular audience of over 80 million. That number will be on the climb with ESPN being involved in the world of eSports.
Only time will tell if ESPN’s involvement will be the start of something big for eSports.
