The competitive gaming scene surged in the recent years with tournaments filling the bird’s nest in Beijing in 2017, and the League of Legends finals in 2018 peaked at 200 million viewers. In 2017 this market had a value of nearly 500 million U.S. dollar, and some analyst proposed that it will go up towards 1,7 billion U.S. dollars in 2021. Companies like Adidas, Mercedes-Benz, Gilette and Old Spice joined the eSports scene rivaling the commitment by Red Bull, Coca-Cola, and Intel. There are now over 150 sports teams involved in eSports, e.g., Philadelphia 76ers, Golden State Warriors, FC Schalke 04, Kraft group (owners of New England Patriots) and many more are investing in eSports heavily. The key goal for them is to attract the young generation. We observe a massive surge in interest in 2016 and 2017. It may even seem like that we are in a buying frenzy capped by Amazon’s acquisition of Twitch for 970 million dollars. In some games, teams have to pay a franchise fee for roughly 60 million U.S. dollar to create the next NFL or NBA.
The world of eSports is massively growing, however, neglected by research. This is quite striking as eSports is born digital, born global, and born agile, subsequently making an exciting research target for management scholars. The eSports industry showed much resilience, and many of the actors in the eSports industry do understand that they have to be sustainable. The topic will stay relevant, and there is much to research in this context.
Submission Deadline: 15thJune 2019