Aaron Rodriguez

November 10, 2020

Written Presentation 3

Cohort 21S

Key Concepts

            The focus of this week’s readings was on the Global Economy. The readings highlighted the focus that sports organizations have on expanding their brand globally. The main strategy that they use in order to expand globally is through media. Media has evolved so much of the years going from a linear system of satellite to a non-linear system of the internet. This new non-linear system has allowed sports to expand exponentially due to the increase in access by the consumer. Consumers can now watch sports anytime and anywhere instead of having to wait till they get home or find a television set at work, a bar etc.

            This newfound non-linear media has allowed sports to grow globally exponentially. Reaching people through the internet also poses opportunities to big-tech giants such as Google and Amazon. This allows sports to be able to reach a significant number of users which they would have not been able to reach had they not partnered with these companies. These companies have name recognition globally and adding their program to their streaming capabilities not only reaches newfound audiences but also reduces costs as they don’t have to set up their own streaming platforms.

            Combined with this effort in the digital streaming space is their efforts on social media. Young adults are a great target for sports organizations globally as they bring energy to stadiums and can reach the most amount of people and are willing to tell others about their experiences through their accounts. The way that sports organizations target young people is through quick stories. Young people have been conditioned for instant gratification and this is the same when it comes to media consumption. They can’t wait as the generations before them did to watch a game on tape from a few days ago. They must consume and interact with their content as soon as it happens. A great social media campaign allows young people to do that.  An industry that has been able to capitalize on all these concepts and engage young people is eSports.

IT “Idea Tangible”

            Esports has had a long journey to become the global sport it has today. Esports first started as a single-player system where you would face the computer at simple games such as “Tic-Tac-Toe” till the first multiplayer game in 1958 of “Tennis for Two”. On October 19,1972 the first eSports tournament emerged with the winner receiving an annual subscription to “Rolling Stone”. This started the competition of eSports which continued to grow over the years. With the growth of home consoles and arcades in the 1970’s this allowed gamers to practice their skills at home and then immortalize their skills at the arcade by being on the leaderboard through the games “Asteroids” and Starfire” and a national video game competition was born with  William Salvador Heineman being the winner.

This gained interest in gaming and developing teams to compete In 1983 the first professional gamer team, U.S. National Video Team. In 1982 the first international video game team was founded in Germany. This helped grow the sport to show that this was not only an American thing but something that could be a worldwide phenomenon. With the growth of the internet in the 90’s this accelerated the growth of the sport as this allowed people to play with other users across the world without meeting. In 1990, the first world championship was established by Nintendo which the prize was gold Nintendo gaming modules. Over the rest of the 90’s PC’s became more accessible and powerful which allowed games to be better quality and be in the hands of more people. This widespread of technology allowed the sport to be able to reach South Korea where the development of tournaments that offered cash prizes was founded in 2005 for $1 million. This was the beginning of eSports becoming the massive industry it is today. Tournaments and gamers soon realized that they could monetize their gaming abilities and the access to the sport allows it to not have limits to who can play.

Esports has become a rapidly growing industry that is currently estimated at $950 million and is estimated to be worth $1.6 billion by 2023. Their interest has been garnered initially through a non-linear media approach. Tournaments and personal content are streamed online through sites such as Twitch.tv and youtube.com. These streaming services allow viewers to be able to watch and interact with their favorite streamers instantly. They have also been able to use a linear approach through their partnership with ESPN and is broadcasted on Disney XD. This allows them to reach a wider audience.

Something that is different about their approach is that their main target isn’t young adults as other sports are. Their main focused audience is the youth. Being on channels such as Disney XD reaches audiences that are in elementary and middle school. Kids are already interested in games and eSports companies are looking to make them interested in their games through this method of broadcasting. Kids can be involved in the sport at an early age as there is no height or weight requirement to be at a professional level. The sport is purely based on the ability of the mind. This opens the possibility for anyone to compete in tournaments or even just to get involved in the sport. This focus on the mind also allows men and women to compete against each other even though this is rare. The industry is predominantly male and gives little opportunity for males and females to compete against each other. There have been claims that men and women think differently and that is why there are separate leagues. However, there seems to be no hard evidence to show that one gender has a significant advantage over another.

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/01/20/heres-why-esports-can-become-a-billion-dollar-industry-in-2019.html

https://www.redbull.com/us-en/meet-the-new-generation-of-esports-kids

https://www.ispo.com/en/markets/history-origin-esports