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Esports and Tournaments: A Hand-In-Hand Affair

Steve Bornstein, Former CEO, ESPN once was quoted saying, “Esports will rival the biggest traditional sports leagues in terms of future opportunities, and between advertising, sales, licensing, sponsorships and merchandising, there are tremendous growth areas for this nascent industry.” Esports is something that young people have created for themselves over a shared hobby and passion. It has been quite some years since esports moved from the sidelines into the mainstream, i.e., it is no longer treated as a ‘waste of time’. Unlike traditional sports, esports is categorised as being scalable owing to its digital backup and its ability to get everyone involved irrespective of their origin, gender, and physical appearances/impairments.

Esports tournaments

Immersing your players and audience in a tournament is an opportunity for any esports company to score big! As such, if you start talking about esports, the topic of tournaments will follow; an inseparable pair they are! Tournaments are one of the most important factors that differentiate esports from gaming. It gives a platform that allows brands to truly engage and entertain their audiences. The popularity of esports is unprecedented and the attention and money that a tournament creates is astonishing. But what goes into building a successful esports tournament?

When deciding a game, you should consider elements such as popularity, competition, streamability, duration, and competition integrity restrictions. The popularity of your tournament will help you evaluate how scalable it can be; your competitors will offer you a better idea of how online tournaments for your game are managed, and stream-ability will help you determine how easy you can stream games.

Designing a tournament

Anyone can organise a tournament but building esports tournaments are not as easy as simply inviting a few people, organising a bracket, and handing out some fancy trophies. The very first step being designing the structure and format of a tournament. Right from designing a tournament to successfully rounding up the tournament, it’s a lot of people, a lot of processes and a lot of technicalities that come into play. What makes esports so unique is its ability to organise tournaments to have participants compete at home. 

There are a variety of formats in which esports tournaments can be played. But deciding on one format is the first essential step. Shiva Nandy, CEO, Skyesports, which is one of India’s leading esports tournaments organisers, says, “We follow a pyramid structure while designing a tournament. The pyramid is divided into three levels, which comprises the amateur level, the path to pro-level and the topmost is the league. Depending on the purpose of the tournament and the kind of players that we expect to participate, we decide on the structure and format based on these three levels.”

As pointed out by Ishaan Arya, Co-founder & Head of Business Development and Content, The Esports Club, which organises major Indian esports tournaments, rightly says, “The format all comes down to the objective of the event, the objectives of our clients and partners and of course how much time we have to finish each event.” A successful esports event defines the objectives and expectations around it. You need to clearly define your objective, do your research regarding your specific game, build up your tournament assets, plan and advertise your event, and execute your event effectively. For successful subsequent events, you will want to make sure you have a well-organised and thought-provoking debrief.

Registering the registrations for the tournaments, sponsorships and partnerships, streaming of tournaments and player satisfaction are some of the other crucial components of an esports tournament. Catch notable persons from the esports industry share their insights on these components in Gutshot’s August 2021 e-magazine. Sign-up once for free unlimited access. 

For more updates about our e-magazine, keep reading GutshotMagazine.com. Follow us on our social media handles like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Telegram.

Photo credit: Firstpost

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