Why Twitter Will Move Into eSports | THE NEXT LEVEL 030

4 min readJul 19, 2016

EXCLUSIVE: TWITTER’S MOVE INTO ESPORTS

My Take: Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey is obsessed with Live Video. If I were running a $13B Media company dependent on eyeballs, content and Advertising dollars, I would be just as crazy.

Here are the Live streaming deals that Twitter has signed or launched recently and many in just the past month:

The last two names should sound familiar: the Pac-12 announced their eSports entrance earlier this year and of course Turner has made the biggest Media investment with E LEAGUE.

With all of those strategic initiatives around acquiring Live Video content I believe that Twitter will make a push into eSports. Here’s why.

/01 IT’S A LIVE, LIVE, LIVE VIDEO WORLD

You can argue whether “TV” consumption is decreasing or if overall consumption of “TV Type” content is actually increasing. Regardless, the critical factor here is Live Video tied to platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Twitch and OTT services.

I probably last cared about Wimbledon when Boris Becker was still playing. But the Twitter Wimbledon Live stream — which wasn’t even actual gameplay — was really well done and looked beautiful in HD on my iPhone.

eSports fits perfectly into this mold: The audience that watches the most content is already consuming this primarily on Mobile devices. I’d wager that Mobile/OTT platforms are the major user share over desktop for Twitch right now.

/02 THE AUDIENCE IS ALREADY THERE

Outside of Mobile being a primary consumption device for eSports, the audience generally also spends a vast majority of their time on phones. Twitter is hugely popular among eSports athletes — just as Twitter is very popular among traditional Sports athletes. Here’s a quick, non-scientific study of two popular eSports athletes:

Further, the YouTuber’s and Streamers all use Twitter as a notification tool to inform their audience about new content. I tell clients all the time — if you’re not active on Twitter, the audience won’t seek you out.

/03 THE TWITTER GAMERSCORE

The notion of a “High Score” is inherent across almost every form of gaming; going back to entering your three initials into your favorite game at the local Arcade. You can see a interesting corollary between the growth of the Twitter platform amongst players and teams in eSports as a distribution medium but it’s also a bragging medium.

Your Twitter follower count becomes this massive video game where getting to 1M and then beyond is a major achievement. You see the same on the YouTube and Twitch side — almost everyone does a “1M Follower” Video — and deservedly so with all that hard work.

While I do believe in Snapchat and it’s future growth potential, the premise that you can’t see someone’s Follower count is the opposite of Twitter or Facebook. But don’t get me wrong, almost every eSports Athlete and team have been on Snapchat for a while.

/04 FACEBOOK

It’s somewhat amusing watching Twitter and Facebook copy each other and you can make similar cases for Snapchat or that everyone just copies each other. But just this one chart shows the vast difference in growth between Facebook and Twitter over the past few years:

In the NEXT LEVEL 010 I said that Facebook would be the biggest threat to Twitch in eSports, more so than YouTube. If not for the previous three points, just staying on track with Facebook is a reason alone for Twitter to make the move into eSports.

With all of the potential broadcast deals between Twitch, Facebook, Media companies and now Twitter, the biggest benefactors will be the ones currently reaping the most in eSports: Publishers.

E LEAGUE WEEK 8 REVIEW

(Source: SportsTVRatings.com, The Next Level)

My Take: A few things happened with E LEAGUE over the past two weeks:

ESPN2's coverage of the EVO Championship from Vegas will see another major eSports broadcast in Primetime
Week 7 of E LEAGUE was a Bye Week due to ESL One Cologne and Turner assembled a 1-hour show during it’s normal Friday slot. I didn’t see Week 7 but the interesting datapoint is that it outdrew every show outside of Week 2. A 1-hour show vs. a normal 4-hour show.
Week 8 of E LEAGUE brings us to the Playoff portion of Season 1. Why would the viewers drop at this important stage compared to the earlier weeks?

We are hitting the final lap for E LEAGUE Season 1 and I will have a wrap up analysis.

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