Esports shows it strength and its place as a true sport worthy of being televised during this pandemic

5/17/20

Esports shows it strength and its place as a true sport worthy of being televised during this pandemic

Esports, and fans of it, have fought for its legitimization in the sports world for years, and with the Coronavirus pandemic the sport is getting closer than ever.

As we all know the COVID-19 pandemic has brought very unfortunate circumstances for everyone around the world. Many businesses and companies in America are seeing massive downfall in revenue, and even sports have almost all been suspended or cancelled in one way or another.

Leagues like the NBA, MLB, NHL, MLS, and NASCAR all chose to suspend their ongoing seasons until further notice.

However, esports has shown it can succeed and adapt to unforeseen situations as they arise.

While esports did have some in person tournaments get canceled and it seemed that it would going down a similar path as the other sports, it did not.

Esports became the only sports remaining and it is the only one that can hold events remotely.

The way esports is structured means it can hold tournaments online and stream them through one of the many streaming platforms that exist. They can keep their viewers and revenue up and gain more with the increase of people at home having nothing to do.

Two of the more popular games, Fortnite and Counterstrike: Global Offensive, also known as CS:GO, have remote online tournament formats and have been able to reach the fans of the games and then some.

Some people might say that no one wants to watch esports or that it is boring and is not the same as other major sports, this is the opposite of the truth. In fact, the gaming business is increasing.

According to Forbes, Steam, a popular place to buy games on computers, is seeing a record 20.3 million concurrent gamers.

CS:GO's Intel Extreme Masters in Katowice had a peak viewership reaching more than one million, making it one of the most watched tournaments in esports history.

Call of Duty: Warzone, a free to play battle royale game, had 15 million players in its first three days. On April 10^th, Call of Duty tweeted their player base had reached to over 50 million players.

There are a lot of people playing and watching other people play these games.

Nick “Nickmercs” Kolcheff, a popular Twitch streamer reached a record 100 thousand viewers with 49,000 subscribers in one stream.

With so many people watching, some of the regular sports leagues and pro players from those leagues have begun to stream as well.

The NBA and some of its star players played NBA 2K20 a basketball game and streamed it for fans to watch. Moreover, they aired this tournament between the stars on ESPN bringing joy to those at home who enjoy basketball and esports. When they aired the tournament, they had about 400,000 viewers.