SXSWORLD

SXSW Gaming 2016 Tournament Stage. Photo by Lisa Hause SXSW Gaming 2016 Tournament Stage winner. Photo by Lisa Hause In 2013, the global eSports audience was estimated to be some 71.5 million people... that figure rose a whopping 216% … in 2015. SXSW.COM | N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 6 | SXS W O R L D 2 9 the eSports world and has helped propel its popularity. Competitions and tournaments are often livestreamed on the platform, allowing viewers at home to feel like they are right there in the stands with the rest of the boisterous competitive gaming audience. Not only that, but several eSports athletes have taken to livestreaming their practices, giving the rabid fanbase even more access to their favorite athletes than fans of traditional sports usually get.  Twitch was also used as a simulcast partner in ELEAGUE, the Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (or CS: GO, as it's com- monly called) league that began broadcasting in 2015. Turner Broadcasting partnered with WME/IMG to bring the league to life, showcasing a competition of 24 teams from all over the world over a 10-week season. The teams descended on Turner Studios and competed live in the ELEAGUE Arena for a $1.4 million prize pool.  Christina Alejandre, ELEAGUE's Vice President and General Manager, said that ELEAGUE attracted more than 3.4 million new viewers (and more than 19 million total viewers) to TBS during its inaugural 10-week season, and 168,000 people on Twitch watched the championship alone. The entire first season generated more than 25 million live streams.  With an audience almost entirely comprised of millennials who are comfortable watching sports and other entertainment on their laptops (or via Xbox One or PlayStation 4, which Twitch can also run through), the eSports community knows that capitalizing on the platform is paramount. "Streaming is really where it's at and where I expect it to mostly remain because streaming is the future of this kind of content being broadcast," Wynne said.  The second season of ELEAGUE, which began airing live on TBS on October 21, is expected to draw many millions more viewers, both to the network and to Twitch. ELEAGUE should only grow from there, expanding to include competition in more games as well. They've already run an Overwatch tournament in between Seasons 1 and 2 of ELEAGUE. "We had a championship week at the ELEAGUE studio," Alejandre said. "It was a great, fantastic tournament. We had a lot of the top teams and players."  Much like the teams competing in ELEAGUE and other leagues and tournaments like it, the eSports audience hails from all over the world, which bodes well for its growth potential in the future. "eSports has been around for over a decade and is hugely popular in Asia," Alejandre said. "They're pretty much equally as popular— maybe a little bit more popular—in Europe. South America has a burgeoning scene. So it is a worldwide, international phenomenon."  As ratings for traditional live sports, such as the NFL, tumble, the popularity of eSports only continues to grow. It helps that tra- ditional media outlets such as ESPN and FOX have dedicated time and resources to covering competitive gaming, treating it like any other sport that fans love. As more and more kids grow up with it as a regular part of the world sports scene, the fanbase should expand accordingly. Considering the kind of money that is already being poured into the eSports world, and the fact that the eSports community is on the forefront of the streaming sports world, right now the potential for the future seems nearly unlimited.

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