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What Live Sports Can Learn From Esports About Fandom


Esports have thrived amid the global pandemic. Live sports leagues have noticed. The NBA 2K players tournament, televised by ESPN2 and distributed on digital platforms, reportedly drew millions of fans. Meanwhile, the Formula 1 Virtual Grand Prix drew big online audiences and gave fans following at home insights into the personalities and personnel moves that make headlines in the sport.

But esports aren’t placeholders until live sports leagues can return. Instead, live sports leagues and broadcasters should take this opportunity to learn about esports fandoms. After all, the vast majority of audiences experience live sports at home, just like esports audiences. However, unlike esports, which deeply engage and embrace at-home fandoms, at-home fans of live sports are largely invisible to the players, leagues and broadcasters. Here’s how live sports can use this moment to learn from esports in order to better integrate internet audiences and win over future generations of fans. 

Digital experiences are as intense as physical events

As a spectator, two events stand out as the most exciting games I’ve ever attended. When my college basketball team won the NCAA tournament, I was euphoric. When I took my son to see the FIFA eWorldCup in London, I had the same feeling of heart-racing anxiety, even though I’m not a gamer and I didn’t have a player to root for at that event.

How could this be? As it turns out, the only people surprised by my experience are live sports fans that never attended an esports tournament. People associated with esports understand that the fan experience is every bit as intense, regardless of whether the play is physical or digital. With physical sports either on hold or being played without fans in the stands, we should take the opportunity to gain firsthand experience with digital fandom. Here’s my advice: 

• Explore as many different esports events and tournaments as possible. The esports world is incredibly diverse, and as a result, it’s rich with examples for studying digital fandom. Observe the two-way relationship between the players/teams and the fans.

• Talk with esports fans about their passions. You learned to love live sports by participating in a community of fans who gathered to watch games on TV or at live events. The same structures fuel esports fandom, although the conversations and connections begin online.

• Play. You don’t have to play like LeBron James to understand basketball, but shooting hoops certainly helps. The same is true for gaming. Play a game of Overwatch or MLB The Show, and experience the passion for yourself.

Inclusivity should be about empowerment

Digital technologies have democratized industries and institutions. In the process, new people aren’t just being included, they’re becoming empowered with unparalleled access. This is certainly true with esports, where a lower barrier to entry blurs the line between players and fans. Not only are fans generally players of the game, they can access (and even financially support) the professional players and influencers directly through streaming platforms like Twitch.

As fans who also play, esports audiences deeply identify with their favorite players. In fact, in large tournaments some fans may even have the chance to compete against the game’s stars. The same is also true in reverse; esports players have an intimate knowledge of their fans because many first experienced the game as fans themselves. As a result, both players and fans aren’t simply a part of esports, they drive the games together. 

The line between players and fans may not be as easily blurred when it comes to live sports, but there’s plenty that can be done to empower fans. One example: broadcasters interview players and coaches during breaks in the game. Why not interview the fans too, or include them directly into the broadcast commentary that is normally reserved for the highest-authority voice in the sport? Social gives the fans oxygen. But the traditional production of physical sports misses the opportunity to engage the fan beyond the casual "fan cam" shot. Esports elevates the fan, and live sports should as well.  

Make room for niche communities

Because of the economics surrounding broadcast of live sports on linear television, live sports leagues have learned that only the largest, most popular entities survive. The reason for this is simple: Traditional broadcast production is expensive, and needs to be supported in part by advertising, which only pulls premium dollars when the event pulls a great Nielsen rating. Meanwhile, niche sports like lacrosse and softball have more work to do under the broadcast model, simply by nature of having a smaller audience than, say, traditional American football. But this isn’t true for esports, where niche leagues thrive, thanks to prosumer digital production tools and internet distribution. 

Leading live sports leagues can use those same tools to empower niche communities within their larger fandoms. For example, developmental basketball leagues and minor league baseball may not work on TV, but those same events can deeply engage and energize diehard fans. Live sports should think similarly about their fandoms as a composite of niche communities, not all of whom can and should be addressed in the same way through linear TV. While media rights and economics lead to building one version of the event assuming that all fans are the same and watching on the same device, experiments should be conducted, as was done recently with PGA Tour’s return to golf, to make many versions of the game to super-serve each niche community.

Democratize fan participation

At baseball games, fans don rally caps. At football games, fans make noise to disrupt the visiting team. At basketball games, the crowd behind the basket waves to distract opposing players. As fans, it’s important for us to feel as though our participation matters. 

Meaningful fan participation in live sports depends on our presence in the venue. Not so with esports. Consider the Formula E Fanboost concept, which translates fan votes into an in-game advantage for a particular racer. At the end of the day, all fans just want to experience their own “I was there” moment, whether at home or in the venue.

Could we bring that kind of fan engagement from the at-home fan to the playing field? Certainly. Online fan votes could determine the outcome of the coin toss, for example. Or, fan celebration videos could be shown at the venue, so that players can see digital fans cheering them on. Or, even simpler, fans can check in and cheer digitally, and have their remote participation shown in the venue and in the broadcast.

There are countless ways to democratize fan participation and to tap into digital fandom more broadly. With live sports facing the reality of empty stadiums, now is the time to draw up a new playbook to engage the huge addressable fan community who mostly have been and mostly always will be cheering from home, no matter if they are or are not allowed in the venue.

Michael Schabel is president and CEO of streaming platform Kiswe.