eSports - at your fingertips!

Management Forum is holding its cutting edge Annual Sports Law and Business Forum in London on 23 November 2016.

Demonstrating its own leadership in this area, one of the key sessions is on the emerging area of eSports, which is taking the sports world by storm.

In regards to one dimension of eSports, a recent report in The Times was headed “Man City signing has two left feet and fastest fingers in the game” and told the story of Kieran Brown an 18-year-old with 12,000 followers on YouTube. He is going to be playing for Man City at Fifa eSports tournaments. Apparently, “gamers sit in rows in front of computers where they play against each other, often watched by thousands of spectators.”

This comes after West Ham signed up a professional Fifa player in May. With gaming tournaments and more content being made available through a club’s digital channels, the aim is have greater engagement with fans.

What’s more, the International Olympic Committee has announced it is considering an application to include professional video gaming or eSports (a £400m a year industry with 130 million fans) in the 2020 Tokyo Games.

Now, this week, we learn that Liberty Media is taking over F1, with one of the reasons given being is that F1 has not exploited digital technology and social media. One commentator (Mark Jenkins of Cranfield School of Management) is quoted as observing: “Formula One should be brilliantly placed to exploit new forms of streaming. Imagine a mixed reality offering where you could race Lewis Hamilton during the grand prix in a virtual race.”

After the Rio games, it was said that Team GB excels at sports where you can sit down: rowing, cycling and horse-riding and we can add motor racing to that.! Therefore, I have high hopes for what we can achieve in eSports.

Of course, there is a great deal more to eSports even than the examples given above, so all professionals working in the sports business and law areas need their knowledge to be fully up to speed – faster, higher, stronger!

So, get those fingers working and get clicking, booking and attending Management Forum’s Annual Sports and Business Law Forum 2016:– and if your fingers are fast enough, there’s an early booking discount to 7 October 2016.

Neil Thomas

Posted on September 16 2016 by Neil Thomas

 

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