eResearch | Sports leagues have cancelled or postponed live sporting events due to COVID-19, which has provided a catalyst for growth in the eSports industry as many Pro sports organizations experiment with various online and virtual reality platforms and gaming tools.
This brings a different light to eSports as broadcasters, marketing companies, and sports media organizations, who are used to supporting traditional live sports, are now catering to virtual and video game adaptations, which professional sporting leagues such as NASCAR, Formula 1, NHL and NBA are currently running in place of live competitions.
As real-life leagues and sports organizations adapt to online methods of competitions, online betting companies such as Newgioco Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: NWGI) are quickly taking steps to expand offerings for eSports betting across multiple countries.
National Sports Leagues
Sports organizations are implementing different strategies to adapt online, including:
- Computer vs. computer (known as CPU vs. CPU simulations), with appropriately “weighted” teams based on real life statistics but with no human player involvement.
- Live competitions between professional teams through video-game simulations of the sports.
Just one week into when all live sports competitions were cancelled, the Phoenix Sun’s shooting guard Ty Jerome and the Timberland Wolves’ forward Josh Okogie, competed with each other through NBA 2K20, a video-game developed by Take-Two Interactive (NASDAQ: TTWO), which reached 3.1 million viewers. Shortly after, the Phoenix Suns ran a computer-simulated game with the Dallas Mavericks, which reached 221,000 online viewers, 12 times the amount reached during real-life games.
Certain professional teams are taking it upon themselves to keep its fans active, such as Washington’s NBA and NHL teams, who are playing the remaining 2019-2020 season through CPU vs. CPU simulations on NHL 20 and NBA 2K20 video-games. NBC Sports Washington and Monumental Sports Network are both airing and supporting the virtual competitions with commentary and analysis from experts.
The Montreal Canadiens have moved their regular season schedule online with CPU vs CPU simulations of the team’s games with their opponents at their previously-scheduled times. The Canadiens will live stream their NHL 20 game simulations on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Twitch. NHL 20 is a hockey simulation video game developed and published by Electronic Arts (NASDAQ: EA).
NASCAR and Formula One
NASCAR was forced to postpone all real-life racing events until at least May due to the COVID-19 social restrictions, but NASCAR’s Chief Digital Officer, Tim Clark, quickly collaborated with its existing partner iRacing, a motor sports simulation technology company, to create the eNASCAR series.
Last month, eNASCAR launched an online event called “The Replacement 100”, which brought together professional racers to compete online through iRacing’s simulation technology. In the past three weekends on Fox Sports, eNASCAR has reached 903,000 viewers on the first weekend, which grew to 1.3 million in the second weekend, according to Nielsen.
Formula One (“F1”) racing also started its virtual competitions last month with F1 drivers and celebrities competing in live streaming platforms such as Google’s YouTube, Amazon’s Twitch, and Facebook. The Grand Prix, a form of motorsport racing that evolved into F1 races, ran its first virtual competitions through the Virtual Bahrain Grand Prix, which was held on March 22.
Betting & eSports Wagering
Earlier this month, Newgioco Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: NWGI), announced the launch of its betting platform in Italy for eSports wagering. In Italy, online operators that are already partnered with Newgioco’s existing subsidiary, Multigioco, can offer its clients the ability to wager on various eSports from videogames such as League of Legend, to national sports such as the NBA and the NHL.
Newgioco is a technology company with an online betting platform, who recently listed on the NASDAQ stock exchange, and signed two new U.S. clients to offer its online- and land-based sports betting platform. You can see the most recent research reports by eResearch on Newgioco here: https://eresearch.com/category/eresearch-reports/company-reports/newgioco/.
In addition, Newgioco, through its wholly-owned subsidiary Virtual Generation Limited (“VG”), offers a full suite of virtual sports, including virtual football and horse racing, with the ability to bet on the virtual events. VG’s technology uses random number generation software, such as ones used for highly-addictive casino slot games, to fabricate a competition with randomly selected winners that users can bet on, which is viewed as unbiased due to the system’s random nature.
As the world keeps contained from outside interactions for the near future due to the COVID-19 virus, more sports organizations are expected to strategize different virtual methods for maintaining viewership. It will be interesting to see if these new avenues of online competition (some of which are reaching higher views than real-life competitions) will continue running once live sports stadiums open up again.
