How e-sports are thriving in the lockdown
No one will mourn Ashley’s departure, said Oliver Holt in The Mail on Sunday. His ambition seemed to extend no further than “doing just enough to make sure Newcastle stayed in the Premier League, with access to the fabulous riches of its television deals”. But what replaces him is worse still: “a regime synonymous with murder and tyranny”. It’s not hard to see why the Saudis want to buy the club, said Barney Ronay in The Guardian. This is about “image, spin and reputation management”. But the Newcastle
“Almost every single major professional sports league across the globe is on indefinite hiatus,” said Andrew Webster on The Verge. But an “unlikely option” is helping to fill that void: watching people play competitive video games, known as “e-sports”.
On Twitch, a streaming platform dedicated predominantly to video games, the audience increased by a third in March alone. Even before the pandemic, e-sports were rivalling other professional sports, said Simon Briggs in The Daily Telegraph. Last year, the Fifa eWorld Cup drew 47 million viewers. There are dedicated e-sport teams: the major American franchises are worth £300m or more; Fnatic, the biggest in the UK, has been valued at £125m, which “puts it on a par with a Championship football team”. Each of its 50 gamers specialises in a single game; they tend to start as teenagers, training up to 14 hours a day, and retire by their mid-20s. In normal
This wouldn’t be the first time a club has been owned by an “institution or individual with dubious morals”, said Rod Liddle in The Sunday Times. “Indeed, it is becoming the rule.” And you can’t expect the “Geordie faithful” to “care tuppence about any of that”, if the new owners provide the club with the investment it needs. And Newcastle really does need investment, said Louise Taylor in The Guardian. The current transfer policy, of spending significant sums only on young players, has given the Magpies an imbalanced squad “low on experience in vital areas, particularly attack”. And they need to replace their “cramped” old training ground. But that’s just the start: the owners will have to find a way to “strengthen communication” with fans, and to boost Newcastle’s meagre commercial revenues. If this deal goes through, “every sphere of the club” will need to be overhauled. times, they compete in arenas and stadiums, in front of tens of thousands of fans.
But e-sports aren’t just an alternative to traditional sports, said Matt Dickinson in The Times. They have become increasingly intertwined. When the Bahrain Grand Prix was cancelled in March, a virtual version took place instead. Twenty racers – including real Formula One drivers such as Nico Hülkenberg and Lando Norris, as well as the singer Liam Payne – competed on simulators, playing Last month, top footballers went head-to-head in the ePremier League on in the final, Diogo Jota of Wolves beat Liverpool’s Trent Alexander-Arnold. The middle-aged “curmudgeons” among us might wonder how this could ever be “a meaningful substitute for the real thing”. But give it another few weeks stuck at home, and we might all be watching virtual matches.
Fifa 20:
F1 2019.