We talkin eSports lol

lol olds

ESports tournaments are selling out Barclays Center and MSG. Entire arenas are being built dedicated to eSports.

It's not whether or not it will become a big thing. It already *is* a big thing.

Interesting thread. If I had to guess, I think a lot of teams that are building arenas/stadiums right now (see LA and Vegas) are going to regret their design fairly rapidly. Live sports really has a problem competing with screens and home comfort. Why would you ever want to spend 8+ hours going to a football game during a polar vortex when you can watch on your 70 inch HiDef and get pizza delivery and cheap beer.

The future needs to be smaller and more intimate and immersive settings, not bigger and shinier. I'm surprised that someone like a Mark Cuban hasn't tried experimenting with that model a bit more. Toss 8-10 Maverick games in a 3000-5000 seat arena with lots of fan engagement and you'd sell out every one.

VR is also going to be an interesting game changer for sports when that gets perfected.

For dorks. Their biggest celeb has ****ing pink hair and looks like he has never done a pullup in his life.

Nice goalpost shifting

Meh eSports is somewhat popular, but you can't just lump fortnite/RL/StarCraft/LoL/etc. alltogether and use that as your metric. It's like counting every stadium/rink/field/diamond/etc. and saying OMG SPORTS IS HUGE!

The problem is that it's difficult to create loyalty/rivalries/narratives with eSports competitors. It's kind of like poker in that respect - how fun is it to watch 9 forgettable internet players play a FT?

Sure you can. You have to because games have a limited shelf life and one game can be big for a few months and then fall off only to be replaced by another game that another team will master. If your logic was used, there'd be thousands of sports created across multiple platforms every year and just as many dying off.

Tournaments aren't just for one game. Multiple games and multiple tournaments are played at one arena. Imagine a basketball game, football game, and baseball game being played in the same arena at the same time.

It's kind of ironic to hear people talk about eSports like it's some fad that'll die down. To me, it's like watching old baseball writers ***** about Sabermetrics.

why would Cuban play games in a 3-5000 seat arena when the team is bad now yet selling out 20K every game?

teams are still building huge stadiums because while a bunch of internet nerds love to stay home to watch games while instantly sharing their ev calculation of fourth down decisions, there are at least 70k people willing to spend a good bit of money and four hours to go

NBA is probably the worst example because their attendance numbers haven't taken a big hit yet, but it's coming. Football, especially college, and MLB have had pretty steady declines that won't reverse without drastic innovation on the live experience. You have college coaches that are literally critiquing their student bodies for not showing up on game day anymore.

Answer to MLB is probably just a market correction in ticket prices, no?

CFB not sure...I do think expecting kids to sit in a stadium for 4 hours without a charged phone to watch Bama beat a team 73-0 is probably over with. Not sure what the solution to is? Maybe don't waste 4 hours on Bama playing a glorified HS team?

MLB doesn't fund teams by live ticket purchases any longer it's by cable TV packages. College football definitely doesn't. It is tacked on to tuition, whether you go to the game or not.

I heard Steve Spurrier say the same thing (“it evens out over time”) after a game where one of his teams were on the bad end of some calls.

Replay is one of those issues I feel deep down in my gut is driving fans away...but I have exactly zero data to back it up. I just know that it sucks and it ruins the experience in a noticeable way week in and week out. It’s the height of irony because I like most fans applauded it when it arrived (because let’s face it, whose favorite team hasn’t gotten ****ed by a bad call that replay could have fixed?) and we could not have been more wrong. I also agree that we are stuck with it because noticeably horrible reffing exists currently. I suppose an argument could be made that replay makes reffing worse by virtue of its existence but I’m not sure how proveable that would be, either.

Is this the alliance for American footy thread?

Decent production thus far lol

They are putting in a legit effort. I think it's smart how they are promoting themselves as not an alternative to the NFL but basically want to be the NFL minors.

Yeah

How many events does esports have a year that sell out?

Also you can't underestimate the buying behavior of irrational people. I had a galaxy brain moment last year as I watched a dude spend 3x the price of his bleacher ticket on the Tribe nachos and a water. And then another $100+ on merch. He kept talking about what a great deal he got on the ticket.

I don't know if there's a concrete number out there because of the number of esports promotional companies out there. The layout is similar to MMA where you have a few massive organizations and a bunch of smaller ones. It's honestly a bit disorienting to figure out what's what given how quickly these promotions are opening and merging with each other.

Problem with gaming as a profession is that it depends heavily on split-second responses and that reaction time needed begins to decline at 24. So pro gamers have a very short shelf life. Wouldn't be surprised if they all aren't on amphetamines to keep themselves alert when playing.

Replay doesn't bother me in the least. And, when it comes to big moments, calls absolutely do not even out. Replay should be unlimited for every ruling in any postseason scenario imo.

It 's a good question. It has all been in an incredible boom that surely can't continue forever. 100 years from now, maybe 50, maybe 25, there will be a lot more meh about sports in the culture than now. I'd bet on it. It's a massive bubble that kind of kicked in 1969 with the first mega-tv events, started to build, hit mega-peak and maintained it damn well ... but can't last. Seemingly. Good subject. The younger generations I think arent getting hooked like that early TV boom generation did. That's a big deal down the road.

I think it will be interesting to see where the NFL stands in popularity in 25 years. My personal feeling that the NBA and MLB will pass it on the popularity scale. A couple of reasons being:

1) The NFL is legislating a lot of the hard hits and violence out of the game. Like it or not, a lot of people are attracted to the hard hitting. As the rules implement continue to promote less violent play, I think fans enthusiasm and viewership will begin to dwindle.

2) With all the emphasis on CTE over the last 5-10 years, parents are definitely either pushing their kids in a different direction when it comes to youth sports or just not allowing them to play it all together. This is leading to youth football numbers being down. This will start to take its effects at the higher levels like college and pros in the next 10-15 years. Some of the top athletes that would of chose to play football 20 years ago, when they were young, will choose to play a different sport leading to the high levels of football having an inferior product.

Grunching: Seems like most of the problems with sports could be fixed by mandating that one position on each team be filled by a naked lady.

Another major issue is that the NFL is trying to squeeze a whole glass of orange juice out of a single orange. They've pretty much monetized every single aspect of the game. It's only a matter of time before NFL fields look like the fence of Indians Stadium from Major League 2. Soon, we'll hear "The Gillette Halftime Show ad break for Ford is sponsored by Coca-Cola". In the end, the NFL will sell naming rights for teams to corporations the way the Korean Baseball League does with their teams.

There's a Mr. Show sketch in there somewhere if it hasn't been done already.

I don't know why you think that over time calls don't even out but whatever. I'm willing to take the chance. I'll even sign a paper saying I'm disavowing replay forever no matter how bad my teams get screwed by poor officiating (although I am still allowed to b.itch about said poor officiating). Unfortunately I'll never get the chance because the obsession over "getting it right" even at the expense of actually enjoying the sport trumps all else.

I think tennis has shown that its possible to use technology to get calls right and make it fun (crowds love hawk-eye!)

If the NFL used similar technology on a football and first downs (instead of having two old fat guys holding antiquated polls on chains running up and down the field and a third ref blinding guessing where the ball ended up in a huge scrum) it would be a pretty big hit.

Obviously this is a tiny fix in the much larger replay issue with the NFL, but its a pretty simple one.