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Hangin' With ... Twitch VP Andy Swanson

ANDY SWANSON is VP of social video platform Twitch. The site, which carries live gaming and allows viewers to interact during online broadcasts, was founded in '11. The platform is available all over the globe, and its popularity -- along with esports as a whole -- is growing rapidly. The industry has recently made waves in the U.S., but modern esports first took off in South Korea, Swanson said. Explaining the global footprint of esports, Swanson said that roughly one third of users are in North America, one third are in Europe and the remaining third are spread throughout Asia and the rest of the world. He spoke to SBD Global about whether esports could become part of the Olympics, recent deals between EPL clubs and top esports players and how he expects the space to evolve in the coming years.

On EPL teams signing esports players ...
Andy Swanson:  It's interesting because FIFA has been a very popular game on Twitch based on the international popularity of soccer. It doesn't surprise me that they're starting to see teams get involved. We're actually seeing this across all professional sports, not exclusive to the Premier League, but the Premier League tends to be a little bit more advanced in this space. These guys are going to become brand ambassadors for the teams, representing them when they play the games. ... We're definitely seeing that the teams and the clubs recognize that this is an opportunity for them to get into the space. So signing a popular FIFA player makes sense from a PR and a marketing strategy. Interestingly enough, EA just announced a $1.3 million prize pool for FIFA. That's a big number to come out of the gate with. That's showing the commitment that's not only coming from the players and the Premier League teams, but also from the publisher. 

On how effective that can be ...
Swanson: I would give it a "to be determined," as a lot of things in esports, as far as what the correlation between traditional sports and esports is. I do think things like FIFA and Madden and NBA 2K have the most realistic chance of crossing that bridge, because obviously if you're a fan of soccer, you understand what's happening in FIFA and vice-versa. The regionality and the loyalty to a team and to players is something that's obviously cooked into a part of that. It lends itself toward that being something that's complementary to one another.

Twitch by the numbers
  • 100 million-plus unique viewers per month
  • 1.7 million-plus unique broadcasteres per month
  • 15,000-plus members of the Twitch Partner Program
  • 106 minutes watched per person per day
  • 2 million-plus peak concurrent sitewide viewers
Source: Twitch
On esports potentially becoming part of the Olympics ...
Swanson: I think the IOC will be open to expanding their reach into other areas. I think this will be one that they take very seriously. I think the challenge is going to be -- just like I've said a lot in my conversations -- you can't just say, 'Add esports to the Olympics.' That's like saying, 'Add sports to the Olympics.' Esports is a series of games. One of the challenges will be what games get added. ... Deciding what game, that obviously has international implications as well, as far as what teams would be playing and so forth. I definitely think that the IOC would consider it, though. But there are definitely some hurdles ahead for it.

On Twitch's role in the rise of esports ...
Swanson: With Twitch, now people can view it anywhere in the world without global borders. I think that's the big thing that's made esports grow so fast, is that you don't have geo-locks on content like we do with traditional sports with broadcast rights. I think that's really propelled it. Obviously when we talk about the NFL, NBA or even FIFA, or the Premier League coming to the U.S., they talk about entering markets and the best strategy to enter a market. Esports went global immediately. 

On the appeal of esports to non-endemic brands ...
Swanson: The non-endemics are starting to see this is where the 13-34-year-old male millennial is consuming content. We've got over 100 million unique users a month on Twitch, they average 106 minutes per session. So it's a huge chunk of engagement. And they're finding that they're not being able to hit these guys on traditional television, and that means also in traditional sports. So we're seeing a lot more non-gaming brands look to esports and games streaming as a way to hit that demographic.

On the relationship between linear TV and online broadcasting of esports ...
Swanson: The challenge there for them is reconciling Nielsen numbers with digital ratings. That becomes a little bit of a challenge. But we view it as complementary. We think that esports has an opportunity to grow to new markets. Things like ESPN broadcasting esports, Turner putting it in there, allows people that wouldn't necessarily be exposed to it to be exposed to it. I also do think it helps with getting the bigger, non-endemic brands to be more comfortable with it since they're used to things like television and Nielsen ratings.

On Twitch's goals for the coming years ...
Swanson: There are a couple of things we want to do. We recently acquired a company called Curse. Curse has unique groupings of business. But one of the things that it adds that we're really excited about is a voice chat mechanism where people can connect with other games and actually chat live, kind of Skype-like. ... I think VR is interesting. There's a lot of talk about virtual reality right now. But the reality I think is that we won't see significant VR for the next several years. But I know we're excited about how people will engage in content and view Twitch and view esports with VR being enabled. I think that's probably a two to three to five-year window before that installation base gets to a point where we're actually engaging a significant amount of content in VR.

Hangin' With runs each Friday in SBD Global.

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