October 23, 2014

WHY TRADITIONAL SPORTS ARE ON THE WANE

The Cubs barely hit 40,000 for any of their home games. Television ratings were dismal all season, with some reports the games barely getting 40,000 local viewers.

But that does not seem to be a huge problem in Korea.

Forbes reports that last Sunday,  a World Championship match series was held in Korea, where 40,000 fans sold out Seoul’s World Cup Stadium to watch Korean pros Samsung White and China’s Starhorn Royal Club compete for the honor of being the best team of the most popular game of the world, "League of Legends," which boasts 67 million monthly players.

Last year's championship held in LA had roughly 11,000 were in attendance. This time around the sponsor moved proceedings to Korea, the country that invented eSports where League has unsurprisingly been hugely popular. The venue nearly quadrupled in size, though Forbes had no official stream viewership numbers, the matches aired on Riot’s website, Twitch and even ESPN 3, the channel’s livestream service. Last year's ratings showed the viewership total was 32 million with 8.5 million watching concurrently. While the common assumption might be that this year’s viewership may surpass that, it is important to note that because of the placement of the final in Korea, it aired in essentially the middle of the night for North America, which could affect the total.

No matter. The numbers speak volumes on what interests young, international audiences.

40,000 people watched live  two five-man teams play a video game! And probably more than 8.5 million people watched the Koreans defeat the Chinese, 3 games to 1 in the best of five match.

In one day, this eSports event surpassed Cub viewership probably two-to-one.

And this eSports culture is going to grow, because the winning team won $1 million dollars.

Instead of playing organized sports, a kid today can sit on his sofa and dream of being a champion Legends player.