MUMBAI: Esports has a higher proportion of male fans than traditional sports. These are also much younger than the fans of traditional sports, says a new study by Nielsen - The Esports Playbook: Maximizing Your Investment Through Understanding The Fans, released this week.
The study, conducted across four key Western markets – the US, United Kingdom, France and Germany, also indicates that 61 per cent of esports fans live in households with three or more people. While they expect a certain kind of advertiser to show up on screen alongside their favorite teams, there is room in the market for non-endemic advertising to take hold. 'Only 17 per cent of both esports’ fans leisure time and money is spent on gaming – esports may be their hobby, but their daily lives entail much more', says the study, the first ever such undertaken by Nielsen.
“Though not true gaming products, technology brands, energy drink, and snack food manufacturers might best be described as ‘semiendemic’, so ingrained are they in the esports and broader gaming experience,” says the report. “In turn, these types of products are most accepted as potential esports sponsors after endemic companies.”
Interestingly, esports fans may be a unique consumer segment, but they use social channels that are broadly popular like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapcat and Reddit, in that order of preference, indicating that advertisers can reach out to their target audience through these media.
Busting Myths
The study debunks the theory that young esports fans are not into traditional sports. In all four markets, interest in the most popular established sport among esports fans is well over 50 per cent. The sports which tend to garner the most interest – soccer, football, basketball, boxing and motorsport – among eSports fans also tend to have popular video game franchises, for example EA SPORTS’ FIFA and Madden games, NBA 2K and Codemasters’ annual F1 game.
Esports fans also watch a lot of linear TV, if the study is to be believed. Among those surveyed, US esports fans watch 4.4 hours of TV every week, while UK fans watch 3.8 hours of TV every week. However, while the average esports fan spends nearly double the time playing video games than watching TV on a TV screen, esports fans are avid streamers who also watch linear TV and are consuming content via all sorts of different screens. Interestingly, female esports fans are watching 15% more TV on average than their male counterparts, says the report.
The top five PC exclusive games followed through esports in the four markets:
US UK France Germany
1. Counter-Strike Counter-Strike League of Legends Counter-Strike
2. League of Legends League of Legends Counter-Strike League of Legends
3. Dota 2 Dota 2 H1Z1 StarCraft
4. StarCraft H1Z1 StarCraft Dota 2
5. Heroes of the Storm StarCraft Heroes of the Storm H1Z1
Also debunking the theory that esports fans do not approve of corporate sponsorships, the data from the four major Western markets, however, suggests otherwise. 50-60 per cent of respondents have favorable responses towards brand involvement in tournaments, streams or esports events. There have been over 600 esports sponsorship agreements since the start of 2016 with teams, leagues and tournaments have forged partnerships with brands in categories such as automotive, food/beverage, personal care, and finance/insurance, notes the report.
Gracenote, a Nielsen company, that already captures, curates and delivers in-depth sports data including schedules, scores, statistics, play-by-play details and team and player information for the world’s major professional leagues and events, is soon likely to add coverage of esports to its portfolio. 'This plan for performance data is currently being mapped and developed, with new competitions such as NBA 2K eLeague and Overwatch League being prime candidates for initial coverage', notes the report.
- Log in to post comments