Interest in e-sports soars

LONDON. — Graham Carroll was racing his BMW touring car around the Interlagos race track in Brazil at speeds of up to 250km/h (155 mph).

For the 30-year-old Scotsman the race went well.

Despite stiff competition from a strong field of competitors, he and his Red Bull teammate Sebastian Job emerged victorious. Only they weren’t really at the race track in Sao Paulo back in November.

No-one was.

Carroll was back in the UK, plying his trade in the competitive world of e-sports. A professional e-sports race car driver, he pocketed $1,200 (£860) for the win.

Even before Covid-19 arrived, the world of competitive e-sports had built up huge viewer numbers, with people watching events on their computers around the world.

Then the pandemic hit, most of us were stuck at home, and audience figures rose even higher.

Last year, 435.9 million people around the world watched e-sports events, according to figures from NewZoo, a market research group that focuses on the sector.

That was 10% more than 397 million in 2019.

At the same time, e-sports worldwide revenues hit US$947m in 2020, driven by sponsorship from the likes of Coca-Cola, Gillette and Nike.

The start of the pandemic last year gave e-sports an unexpected boost, because with much professional sport paused, many real world players started to try their hand at the virtual versions. In the case of Formula 1, drivers such as Max Verstappen, Lando Norris, Carlos Sainz and George Russell swapped their cars for gaming rigs.

While in football, Gareth Bale, then of Real Madrid, and now of Tottenham, was one of many to pick up a gaming controller. And some football clubs formed their own e-sport teams, such as Manchester City, and Portuguese side Sporting Lisbon.

Carroll, himself a former real world driver in the Formula Ford classification, says it gave e-sports a big boost.

“When the pandemic hit, for the first few months of it, so many e-sports championships started with real-life drivers, and [existing e-sports] drivers racing against each other,” he says. “It was brilliant. The viewing numbers really grew . . . now there are people hooked on e-sports. It opened a few people’s eyes.”— BBC Sport.