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New Threat To Traditional Sports Leagues: Millennials Prefer Watching eSports (venturebeat.com)
Professional sports leagues "officially have a millennial problem," writes VentureBeat, citing some interesting findings from L.E.K. Consulting.
- 40% of millennials prefer watching esports to traditional sports
- 26% of millennial eSports enthusiasts reported a significant uptick in eSports viewing over the past year
- 61% of esports followers said they spent less time watching TV over the past 12 months, and 45% said they had cut back on traditional sports viewing
- Together millennials -- ages 17-34 -- and Generation Z peers -- age 16 and under -- comprise 45% of America's consumer base
"At a certain point, this comes down to a new form of media better serving an upcoming generation of consumers," concludes VentureBeat. "Esports leagues are all online. Most matches stream for free on sites like Twitch. They are available on the web or through smartphone apps. Competitive gaming is easily accessible, and it lives where Millennials are already spending their time."
Maybe that's why Major League Baseball's video streaming company recently paid $300 million for the right to stream League of Legends through 2023.
The real threat to sports is the same as the threat to everthing else in the culture: politics. ESPN decided to side against their audience when they fired Curt Schilling, just like Target decided their stores were mostly for transsexuals. Colin Kapernick appeared to choose sides against America during the national anthem at the beginning of games.
There's no end of anti-Trump hatred among celebrities and sports figures, and a lot of this hatred bleeds over into hatred of the millions of Trump voters, and then, like any other obsession, threatens to expand from there.
The audience is deciding they don't need to spend time and money on entertainers and merchants who hate them, so we see the NFL, and ESPN, and Target struggling, and we see low movie attendance on Memorial Day weekend.
I'm old and better!!
I worked harder!! And when I had kids, I told them to take it easy! Being lazy is the way to go!!
I said, "Son. Work is stupid. Just cruze, jerk off and everything will come your way!"
That's what every one does, right? Why my grandpa raised 5 kids, supported a wife, had a house and and a car on one salary!
Wait! He was an evil GM union electrician. How dare he get the benefits of the capital class with group bargaining!
Management NEEDS complete control so they can reep the benefits of their lobbied laws AND globalization! because I benfit from it!!
See, for every deal they make, I get 52 cents in my IRA!
It doesn't matter that Grandpa lived comfortably on his GM pension - PENSION. No! I got my high fee IRA/401K with shitty returns and my Social Security - if it still exists (thanks Republicans) to fall back on.
Saved more - Libertarians? Well, I used to drink your Kool-Aid and it's wrong. See, I got stuck in 2001, and 2008 - investing in blue chips - boring crap not the high flying crap like today's Tesla or Amazon, but GE, GM, IBM, - BLUE chips!!! I DID NOT take risks!! The stock market was SAFE - RIGHT!!!! Privatization was SAFE - RIGHT!!!!
I still got screwed!!!