Via Axiomatic Gaming | News
The Sport of the Future Is Esports, According to Dodgers and Warriors Co-Owner Peter Guber
May 26, 2017 | Author: Leo Hsu
Mandalay Bay CEO said esports’ audience plays the games, making them more involved than other sports fans.
If you’re looking for a sport to hook the audiences of the future, esports may be the best game in town, according to Peter Guber, co-owner of the Golden State Warriors, Los Angeles Dodgers and Los Angeles FC.
“I think it has all the tools to really go the distance and become something powerful,” Guber, who is CEO of Mandalay Entertainment, told CNBC.
Esports’ audience plays the games, making them not only participants but “passengers,” Guber explained. It makes it easier to fill up stadiums in just 20 minutes for championships, and venues have been excited about hosting the events, he said. Guber is also co-owner of professional eSports organization Team Liquid.
“Here is an audience that’s so effervescent, this whole young audience that’s embraced the whole e-technology, the whole e-gaming and have for the last 12 years,” Guber said.
“And it has had a straight-up trajectory,” he said. “Esports and egaming hasn’t plateaued when somebody went off to college. It’s bigger in college; and after college, the audience continues to consume it both as players and watchers, and observers in location-based entertainment, on PCs, on mobile. You have a device that makes people digitally aware, and so this fits right into the sweet spot.”
In addition, the sport is extremely popular in Korea, China and Japan, and has big fans elsewhere in Asia and Europe, Guber said. The total worldwide market for esports last year was estimated at $892 million, according to research firm SuperData.
“You’ll see that it’s everywhere, and it isn’t bound by geography,” he said. “You don’t use a stick or a bat to play, and you can play alone or with a whole group of people, play against the best.”
Correction: Guber is the owner of the Golden State Warriors, not the California State Warriors as originally stated.