Growth of eSports threatens to overthrow traditional sport
The Premier League has announced its own competitive gaming competition as the popularity of video games soars.
The Premier League’s eSports competition will be called ‘The ePremier League’ and will be launched in January 2019. Video games have become an extremely popular form of entertainment, whether that’s as a player or a spectator.
Player participation and audience numbers in competitive eSports have risen to unprecedented levels in recent years — overtaking conventional sports viewing.
Statistics accumulated by statista calculated the number of regular eSports viewers was 143 million in 2017, while the average viewing figures of the 2016/2017 Premier League season was 0.9 million on Sky.
Emma, an Arena Specialist at Belong by GAME in Commercial Road said: “The thing with eSports is that they are super accessible, you can just turn it on and watch.”
eSports have become international events with winners taking home six-figure cheques.
Emma said: “Students are a big drive for us, the majority of our teams are from the University of Portsmouth — at a recent event we had 41 players and eight teams taking part.”
Chris Shaw, 21, manager of the Portsmouth-based Invulnerables eSports said: “eSports are social things, you meet people and make friends in a way that I don’t think you can compare to any other sport, there are no barriers and boundaries like there would be between rival teams at a football game.”
