One big thing that traditional sports and eSports have in common are that they are both spectated by a large audience around the world. This page will cover the similarities and differences in how they are streamed, in addition to the future of eSports streaming.
The broadcasting of traditional sports has a long history starting in the early 1900s with radio. By the mid 1900s sport had started to make its way to TV, and now millions of people around the world watch sports online and on TV around the world. [4]
eSports is fairly modern and streaming has been the main media outlet since quite early on. While matches are often streamed online similar to how traditional sport matches are, the players streaming their own gameplay is very common with eSports. Often players will stream their practice or online tournaments on various streaming websites, the most popular being twitch.tv. Many people believe this allows the viewer to feel more involved with the match and be able to learn from how these top players play the game.
One big difference between the two is that traditional sports are most commonly viewed on traditional TV, whereas eSports are almost exclusively viewed through internet streaming on websites such as BBC. This is starting to change however as streaming traditional sports becomes more popular and eSports are even making their way to traditional TV very slowly, thanks to the rapidly growing popularity of eSports around the world. [3]
Another key difference is age range. The average age for the people watching eSports streams tend to be a fair bit lower than the average age of traditional sports watchers. This may be due to eSports being a very new concept when compared to traditional sport. Another contributing factor may be the age of the players, who are also fairly young.
Game streaming is often used as a way for higher ranked players to give advice to lower ranked players to help them improve. The higher ranked player can watch the lower ranked player’s livestream and get tips on how to improve. Through this the lower ranked player can more easily get better at the game and become a higher ranked player themselves eventually. [2]
In addition to top players teaching lower ranked players, lower ranked players can watch higher ranked players play and learn from how they play as mentioned earlier. One big benefit that eSports has over traditional sports when it comes to streaming is that players can watch streams and play the game at the same time just by having the stream on another monitor/device, this could potentially allow players to practice the high rank player’s tactics themselves while watching.
Hundreds of millions of people watch eSports around the world, and it is starting to get to the point where it can compete with the viewership of traditional sports. Korea is leading the pack in terms of eSports popularity. It’s possible that eSports would not be anywhere near as popular if it wasn’t for the large number of people watching it both in person in a tournament arena, and through livestreams. [5]
Another benefit to the players streaming their gameplay is that many of the more popular ones can make a significant amount of money just by streaming their gameplay. This encourages many more people to give it a try and contributes to the massive increase in game streamers over time. [5]
One of the reasons that watching individual players play the game is so popular may be due to the interaction involved in streaming. The viewer may feel more involved in what is happening and engaged in the game more than with traditional sports due to the chat. The chat allows the streamer to respond to viewer questions in real time. It is also speculated that watching esports may be a form of escape from everyday life and the same could be said about traditional sports. [1]
While individual players streaming is very popular, tournament livestreams are also incredibly popular. Examples of big tournaments include LCS (a League of Legends tournament), Overwatch League (an Overwatch tournament) and EVO (a popular tournament covering many fighting games). They usually show the gameplay of all the players on screen and have commentators speaking over the match about the players, tactics they are using and the score itself. Not too different to traditional sports.
In conclusion the streaming and viewership of eSports is rapidly becoming more popular and actually shares quite a lot with traditional sports streaming. In the future they will likely compete in viewership and many of the differences between them will possibly start to fade such as the age range and where they can be viewed.
- Xander Davies
Bibliography
1. Juho Hamari, M. S., 2017. What is eSports and why do people watch it?. Internet Research, 27(2), pp. 211-232.
2. Gerber, H.R. & Botzakis, S., 2017. eSports and Streaming: Twitch Literacies. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 61(3), pp.343–345.
5. https://onlinebusiness.syr.edu/blog/esports-to-compete-with-traditional-sports/
Xander Davies
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