27 ADVERTISEMENT FEATURE The Switch
AI AND VR ARE GOING TO HAVE HUGE PARTS TO PLAY IN THE NEAR FUTURE, ESPECIALLY FROMA BROADCAST LEVEL
Look at how fast esports has grown, compared to, for example, American football – I mean, they were wearing leather helmets for 40 years! Esports was invented 15 years ago. There has never been a sport that’s grown at this lightning rate. Esports has been forced to evolve at a rate that traditional sports hasn’t. Because of that, things like fan interaction from companies like Twitch are completely game-changing. Now pro sports are seeing those numbers and growth, and they’re taking notice and trying to figure out how to bring that into their business. FEED: HOW DO YOU SEE ESPORTS CHANGING OVER THE NEXT FIVE YEARS OR SO? CC: The answer is I don’t know, and I think most people would consider me an esports expert. But because esports is growing at such a rapid rate, all I can say is we’re excited to be part of it. The Switch is hopefully going to be a big leader in that change and will help continue that growth. AI and VR are going to have huge parts to play in the near future, especially from a broadcast level. As you saw with the broadcast of the League of Legends championship last year, there was a VR dragon that flew through the stadium, and they won an Emmy for it. So esports is leading innovation and broadcast is then raising its technological skills to match that innovation. I think the numbers are going continue to grow as money is pumped in. Esports
ESPORTS ARE GOOD Traditional sports broadcasters are beginning to see the growth in esports and the advantages of getting on board
dreams and plans are now being fuelled by actual cash. That’s the difference between esports ten years ago when people had these ideas, but no capital, and now when the capital is at a point where they can realise these concepts. People can start trying something different and just roll the dice. In the NFL it’s hard to roll the dice, because you have a set format. In esports the format and the barriers are being broken every day. I think the game-changer has been the advent of Twitch. All of a sudden these metrics were viewable – 22 million eyeballs over a weekend was a real number that you can actually measure, and pro sports took notice of that. As their numbers may have been declining, esports numbers were shooting up at a pace that has never been seen in any other sport. Twitch has helped with that influx of capital and it has allowed
esports to move at a full run, and I don’t think it’s going to slow down. Esports is certainly not a bubble. People say: “Where did eSports come from? It’s only been around three years.” Well, it actually started in 2003. We were on DirecTV, on Sky, on Star Asia. We had a league in 2007 that had $50 million of capital. Like any other industry, it has gone through ebbs and flows. We’re at a high right now, and I don’t think it’s going to crash anytime soon. It’s a rocket ship and I don’t see it going anywhere besides up.
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