Esports played a core role at a very future-ready MIPTV, the world’s longest-running international TV market, during 4-6 April 2022.
A free exclusive wrap-up report of the related conference sessions and talks powered by Esports BAR, MIPTV’s sister event, is available for you to download now.
Taking place at the iconic Palais des Festivals in Cannes, a series of insightful esports-dedicated conversations at MIPTV explored the rapid growth of esports entertainment, gaming, competitive-gaming events and their uncompromising appeal to young Millennial and Gen Z audiences.
Moreover, the speakers agreed that esports and video-gaming could provide the bridge guiding traditional linear TV into a future built on the development of next-generation Web3 media tech, including the metaverse, NFTs and cryptocurrencies.
To learn how this could happen, read our exclusive free copy of the wrap-up by downloading the publication through the form on the right on desktop & below on mobile ↦
The report comprises the following themes:
- Esports’s Influence on Next-Generation Content
- Esports Viewership – What TV Needs to Know
- Esports’s Early Adoption of Web3 Business Models
- Esports’s Relationship with Brands
- Esports – Why Traditional Media Needs to Be There
- A Round-Up of MIPTV-dedicated Sessions on the Metaverse and NFTs
Esports and media experts speak
Here are examples of what high-profile experts had to say about how esports, video-gaming, TV entertainment and emerging tech like the metaverse and NFTs are ripe and ready to enthral a new generation of viewers of screen entertainment.
“Traditional football (soccer) fans skew towards being older in terms of age, but 75% of esports fans globally are younger than 34 years of age. So, if you are thinking of rejuvenating your TV channels, esports is really the way to do it,” Michael Heina, International Sector Director Esports and Gaming at YouGov, the global research and data-analytics company, said.
He was speaking during the MIPTV panel called Introducing Gaming & Esports to TV.
On another panel called Revamping and Reinventing the Viewership, Frank Sliwka, COO at the international non-tournament esports platform Epulze, said:
“Four out of 10 golf fans are golf players themselves. In soccer, it is one out of 10. With gamers, it is 10 out of 10. So, what we are learning here is that esports and gaming fans are very dedicated to what they do.”
In the same Viewership session Claire Hungate, President/COO at esports organisation Team Liquid and an Esports BAR advisory team member, explained why it is fundamental to understand esports fans’ psyche if you want them as viewers.
“There isn’t just this amorphous blob of people who watch esports; they are separate audiences,” she explained. Their drive is to function as communities or tribes devoted to their favourite esports games or teams. “The teams’ goal is to have that tribal fandom. You want someone with a tattoo on their head saying, ‘Team Liquid’, or to even have it on their Twitter feed saying: ‘I’m a Team Liquid fan’. That kind of tribal fandom is really, really hard to attract and that is what we’re all trying to gain.”
Where Web3 comes in
Patxi Barrios, COO/Co-founder at Spanish video-game studio Champion Games, reminded delegates that it is because esports and competitive-gaming businesses are innovative that enables them to understand what brands want.
In the session called Immersive Entertainment: Will Esports & Gaming Be the Guide Through Metaverses, he said: “Gaming is helping us understand the metaverse because it is creating new audiences and creating new content. That is what brands were expecting in previous versions of the digital ecosystems. Metaverses are disrupting this idea of how brands can get more exposure on the digital ecosystem.”
It was Alban Dechelotte, General Manager at esports organisation G2, who pinned down how creators and content owners in the esports and TV spaces could find themselves collaborating in future projects.
“When I go through the trade show here at MIPTV, I admire the level of creativity in terms of new formats, new ideas, taking something and creating something fresh. I wish that creative minds from TV and media could come to esports and bring us that.”
And it was David Kleeman, Senior Vice President, Global Trends at Dubit, a kids-focused international games studio and creator of the virtual-esports league called the Metaverse Gaming League, who said the foundations for a full-blown metaverse are already here for both esports and TV to join.
“The fact that it is not here yet means we can start to envision the metaverse that we want to have, as opposed to taking the one given to us by other companies.”
To discover more about how esports and competitive-gaming entertainment are about to revolutionise the way traditional media moves forward in today’s tech-driven media universe, download a free copy of the Esports BAR-powered Sessions at MIPTV 2022 – A Wrap-up Report by filling out the form on the right on your computer & below on mobile.
Esports BAR is returning soon; watch this space.
