Television and eSports, Can it Work
In recent history, sports and television have gone hand in hand as more spectators are choosing to watch games from the comfort of their own home instead of going to a stadium. Broadcast deals have gone up in value and provide teams, and leagues, with a lot of revenue. It was only a manner of time before eSports came to television as well. The first big foray into cable television has taken the form of Turner Sports new eSports competition, ELeague.
ELeague will feature a tournament format with each season featuring a different game. The first season of ELeague featured the popular eSport title Counter Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO). With twenty-four teams competing from all around the world, ELeague exposed American audiences to eSports in a major way. Though there have been eSports on television before, ELeague is the first time that a network has fully invested into eSports and created an entire studio for their competition. Turner has taken a risk on eSports but have good experience in broadcasting sports.
Turner Sports is most well known for their NBA show hosted on TNT. TNT hosts many NBA games and feature an analyst desk, filled with experts and former pros, which review the games and give their thoughts on the games. Currently, along with NBA on TNT, Turner Sports also broadcast most of the NCAA tournaments known as March Madness, some MLB games, Golf tournaments, and now ELeague. Although ELeague has been the biggest eSport competition on cable television, it has not been the first.
In America, the most well known example of eSports on television was when ESPN hosted a Heroes of the Storm competition titled Heroes of the Dorm. The tournament featured collegiate teams competing in the game to earn tuition to their university and/or gaming equipment. The tournament was hosted on ESPN2 and received majorly negative reviews. Ratings were low and ESPN has not hosted another eSport competition since Heroes of the Dorm.
The failings of this certain competition came down to multiple factors including the game chosen, ESPN’s effort in hosting the tournament, and the collegiate nature of the competition. Heroes of the Storm is a relatively new game and is not nearly as popular as games like League of Legends, Starcraft 2, or CS:GO. While ESPN hosted the tournament, they did not put much money into promoting the competition or making it comparable to other sports on television. Their CEO, and other pundits of ESPN, have said they do not like eSports and will not show it on ESPN. When a company has top members of the company saying these things, when that network eventually hosts an eSport tournament, they typically do not put their best foot forward. Finally, the nature of the competition did not feature professional teams or the best players of the game. Instead the teams were made up of college students who, while still good at the game, are not playing at the top level and being paid to compete.
These factors may have hurt the success of Heroes of the Dorm because the game may have not been popular among spectators, ESPN did not try their best to make the competition appealing, and the tournament was not played at the top level. Turner has not repeated these mistakes as they have hosted the first season of ELeague.
ELeague featured a unique broadcasting format that had games during the week streamed online and on Fridays, during group play, the final matches were shown on cable television on TBS, one of Turners channels. Since majority of eSport competitions are streamed online, this format allowed those spectators to continue watching the games online, while also exposing television audiences to the most important games of the tournament on Friday nights.
Turner also brought in the best analysts and commentators in the scene to cast these games. This move gave more credibility to the tournament among CS:GO fans and these commentators did a great job at explaining the game to new viewers. Along with bringing in top talent to cast the matches, Turner partnered with big name sponsors for the event.
The two big sponsors for the first season of ELeague were Arbys and Buffalo Wild Wings. Arbys created commercials promoting both CS:GO and ELeague and catering to fans of the game. This drew in new customers and gave spectators who had no knowledge of eSports a company to associate with eSports. Buffalo Wild Wings centers a lot of their business around drawing in customers by showing big sport matches at their restaurants. Introducing eSports into their line-up was not a big stretch and fit great with their existing system. Buffalo Wild Wings gave fans a place to go and eat while watching the games.
These two sponsors helped give viewers a name to associate with eSports. This move helped to draw in more viewers and give credibility to eSports as a whole. Sponsors are always an important part when hosting sport leagues and Turner has brought on good companies to partner with in order to promote their league and grow the eSport industry. Turner has fully invested themselves into eSports and ELeague.
Turner Sports built a venue to host the tournament, showing their investment and commitment to future leagues. This is a good indicator for the future, as it seems that Turner plans to continue hosting eSport competitions for years to come. Along with building a venue to invest in the future, Turner has realized that it will take a while for eSports to become vastly popular on television. Turner tracked the statistics of the first season of ELeague and were proud to show that more than 3.4 million viewers turned into TBS to watch the tournament during its’ ten week season. (Turner, 2016) The numbers given by Turner are a great start for eSports on television and the numbers will most likely continue to grow in consecutive seasons. The work put in by Turner, and all members involved in ELeague have made this first season a success.
As shown by previous attempts to broadcast eSports on cable television, the tournament can go wrong and not be successful due to eSports relatively short history. It takes a lot of investment in order to make it work, but ELeague has shown that eSports on television can be successful. Turner learned from the mistakes of previous tournaments and invested into showing eSports on television by getting sponsors, realizing that it will take a while to reach numbers similar to other sports, and introducing a format that is kind to both existing fans and new viewers. ELeagues next game will be Overwatch, and like the name suggests, viewers will be flocking in to watch the excitement unfold.
