Many of you may know that I enjoy playing video games... specifically League of Legends. Last year US immigration services cleared League of Legends as an official Sport. The Staples Center in LA sold out in minutes for the World Championships. Millions of people watched as teams from all over the world competed on stage for a million dollars. It is cool to see a college offer athletic scholarships for this. It was really only a matter of time. I was handed a nintendo remote at the young age of 3. Technology has advanced, the world gets smaller. When I grew up, friends had to come over to the house to play. Now, my friends live all over the country, some even out of the country. We get together and play these games. Specifically about whether this is a sport or not... let me ask you this. How many hours a day do college basketball players practice in order to be prepared for games? The professional League of Legends scene spends just as much time, if not more. Pro players typically play 8-10 hours a day... at a minimum. They have coaches, analysts, managers. As time progresses and the game matures, you will see more people come on board and take this seriously. People are taking notice. Coke Zero is the official sponsor of the Challenger League (a step below the pro league). Big companies are sponsoring teams. And people watch. From a marketing perspective, at any given time 200,000+ people are watching league of legends on twotch.tv. This spikes when pro games are on twitch.tv. The viewership is concentrated in the male demographic, with a specific age range. From a marketing standpoint, I am shocked that more big companies havent jumped on board. Twitch reaches more viewers during prime time than MTV, TNT and AMC. I wont be surprised when this gets picked up by a cable network. Its already on TV in Asia where E-sports has been taken seriously for many years. So, congratulations to Robert Morris University for being the first. You wont be the last.
Posted on: Fri, 20 Jun 2014 18:31:01 +0000
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