Why sports teams are recruiting video gamers?

BUOYED by a huge new television-rights deal, English Premier League football clubs are expected to spend more money than ever on transfers during this summer's window. Leading the charge will be deep-pocketed, Abu Dhabi-owned Manchester City, which has a new manager, Pep Guardiola, tasked with restructuring the squad. The club has already bought a German international, Ilkay Gundogan, for £21m, and further recruitment is guaranteed. Less attention has been paid to the signing of 18-year-old Kieran Brown, a promising youngster, but one who will never kick a ball for the club. Instead, he has been hired to represent the club at eSports.

eSports is an umbrella term for competitive video-gaming, an industry that has mushroomed thanks to the spread of high-speed internet and the development of streaming platforms, such as Twitch.tv. The games most commonly played professionally are first-person shooters, such as Halo and Counter-Strike and so called "multiplayer online battle arena" games, like League of Legends and Warcraft. Professional tournaments are played in stadiums to live audiences of thousands and to a wider audience of millions streaming on the internet. A survey by Newzoo, a market-intelligence firm, estimated that advertising, merchandise and media revenue from eSports will rise to $465m in 2017, more than twice the level of 2014.

Read the full article here: http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2016/07/economist-explains-10?fsrc=scn/fb/te/bl/ed/whysportsteamsarerecruitingvideogamers