Here’s Ankit with his article on fantasy football finding a home in eSports
Fantasy Football finds a Home in eSports
A fast-growing hobby globally is eSports which are fast becoming a worldwide phenomenon. Millennials are increasingly interested in watching, buying, and playing things related to eSports. Today, eSports is a $700 million industry worldwide, and it continues to grow at a rapid rate.
While traditional football fans may look down upon video gamers fighting it out on the screen, competitions on the screen can draw millions of passionate online viewers. The critical question remains whether eSports can build a brand like Real Madrid or Manchester United.
Presently, audiences are as knowledgeable about Manchester United as they are about Fnatic. In fact, 60,000 people had recently attended an eSports event at the iconic Bird’s Nest Stadium in Beijing. If you may be struggling to understand why anyone would travel halfway around the world to watch people play video games, then you indeed are the minority.
The top games have millions of followers who are keenly interested in them and there These gamers make millions of dollars through prizes, appearance fees, or merchandise. Plus, there are fans and multiple fan clubs for the best gamers. Fans sing and chant the names of their favourite players, and there are transfers between teams.
In 2016, thirty million people say the League of Legends World Championship where the winners took home over $2.68 million in prize money. There is little surprise then that mainstream television channels want to be a part of this new phenomenon the same is true for betting sites where esports betting is now featured prominently.
ESports advocates talk about their communities and the friendships that they have been able to develop all over the world. Technology has made it possible for people to bond with similar minded people over their favourite sports. However, the line between virtual and real has started to blur. United Manchester along with several other top Football clubs are trialling virtual reality during their training sessions.
Websites such as AlphaDraft offer daily League of Legends fantasy league which are set up to appear a lot like DraftKings or FanDuel. This service enables users to use real money into matches where you can draft players for games over a day or the entire weekend. What this implies is that if you follow the League of Legends and you are familiar with the competitor’s names, you could easily use this information to earn cash.
The fantasy market for NFL alone runs into billions of dollars, and companies like Alpha Draft and Vulcun are looking for methods to make this framework suitable for the millions of people who watch the League of Legends events.
Fantasy Football has found a home in eSports uniquely. The users can create their own four, six, or eight-team leagues. They can then invite friends to these leagues and organize their draft. In totality, seven players can be chosen for each team. These players cover various positions, and three alternate players can be substituted in for a starting player. Also, only two players can be chosen for every position. Drafts in the League of Legends Championship Series happen in real time and only one minute if allowed for each pick.
To bridge the gap between virtual and real, the player’s statuses are based on their real-life performance at the Championship. That means fans must watch the real games consistently to understand who owns what. Further, during the games, the teams and individual players will score points based on performance. While teams are scored on wins, dragons, and turrets, players are assessed on kills, deaths, assists, and creep kills. Now, Sports is one of the most popular theme on internet, people love to watch matches, play fantasy sports games and even love to bet on their favorite teams and players.
Fantasy football seems to have found a new haven, and it’s bigger than ever. We will need to wait and watch to see how the dynamics between real Football and eSports unfold in the time ahead.
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