E-sports Pull In More Viewers As Coronavirus Halts Live Sports Matches


E-sports Pull In More Viewers As Coronavirus Halts Live Sports Matches

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As we know that most of the sporting event has been Postponed or cancelled, so sports fans and players are frustrated without sport because of the Coronavirus pandemic are turning into e-sports, with professional real world athletes are joining the virtual game tournament of football, basketball and autoracing.

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We’ve seen a dramatic increase in viewership” for e-sports broadcasts, said Todd Sitrin, senior vice president of Electronic Arts Inc’s (EA.O) Competitive Gaming Division, adding that the maker of battle-royale sensation “Apex Legends” saw an increase of two to three times its normal viewership in the first quarter of 2020.

“All the traditional sports have suspended their seasons and their broadcasts, so what we’ve seen is that fans are really searching for a way to get their sports fix”, Sitrin said.

E-sports tournament is largely available on game streaming platform such as Twitch, YouTube Gaming and Facebook Gaming and also broadcast on TV channels such as Fox sports and ESPN.

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According to analytics firm Stream Hatchet, the online streaming platform recorded an increase of 495 million hours in the week from March 29 as compared to around in the beginning of 2020.

Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O)’s Twitch, which dominates the market for game streaming, recorded a nearly 60% jump in viewership in March with over 1,300 million hours watched, compared to a year earlier, according to Superdata, a Nielsen company.