Blue Star Sports Tech was at the Hashtag Sports Conference to learn more about the trends in sports technology. Here are the conference notes from one of the hottest areas in sports –
Esports
Intersection between gaming and sports
Gaming community is an opportunity to connect brands with young users
Can brands contribute to be part of this experience?
Opportunity exists to engage at higher level, a more personal level
->experiential marketing – on and offline
Young audiences are engaged in personalities
TV networks are investing in esports.
Engagement declined in person
Twitch paying money for exclusive content
My esports thought -> “if you can’t play it” -> “PLAY IT”
Trending influencers over companies
Whistle has 33m esports social community
Esports to connect to the physical
Esports are trending to scale to a national audience, right now only specific games are selling out arenas such as league of legends
Opportunity to build experiences around the esports ecosystem – national conventions
Esports best in the B to C side right now
Esports fan has money and spends more, generally successful people not losers living in the basement
Virtual room/stadium concept
100m esports group on Activision, overall 400m
Esports is doing a good job self-regulating through the leagues
Envision gambling in the near future
One must understand the ecosystem of esports
Publishers-teams-organizers-studios
Tech stack
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/hiring-sen-software-engineers-sportsesports-brett-mcdonald
skin gambling
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skin_gambling
Each game has a different audience
Will this be my grandchildren’s local Card game or my kid’s hold’em tourney (for $)?
Esports marketsize 1b-2019
Teams are currently unprofitable but are increasing in valuation and growth equity
Conversion funnels being worked on
Viewership-engagement
Is there an IP situation with publishers?
Publishers originally interested in the marketing, now maybe more
Esports is different than competitive gaming
Recent college activations are important to Blizzard
Heroes of the Dorms campaign
LCS league has 46m views
IMG building business case for sponsors
Commitment now into data to ensure pricing in esports
Esports represents 12 different titles. Right now the focus has been on infrastructure which with new investment is teasing a great opportunity… provides stability and real career paths.
Overwatch – 63m audience, 1B title
Selling city franchises to traditional owners. Trying to replicate home and away sports.
10-20m to get into franchise systems
esports testing on TBS/Turner, sees hybrid viewing situation in the future, it’s audience is not on TV
Dollars need to reach beyond top players.
Publishers own the IP (Activision…)
Must understand ecosystem to have success
