09 Oct Presentation of White Paper “Gaming and Sport During COVID” – October 29, 2020

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The impact of COVID-19 has been unprecedented across all ages, gender, ethnicities, economic status, linguistic preference and geographical location. Rather ironically, these are also the same reasons which have historically explained the global attachment Sport to billions around the world over the last century and more – a process that dates back to the first modern Olympic Games, in Athens in 1896.

The first evidence of Sport becoming an industry can also be linked to the Olympics – the 1984 Summer Games in Los Angeles that featured unprecedented television coverage to an increasingly global audience, estimated at the time to be in excess of two billion. One of the most popular memories. It was no coincidence that this scale of global exposure was made possible by the adoption of Colour Television in large markets such as China, India, and the Russia (then the USSR). An iconic memory from opening ceremony of the LA Olympics was the “Flying Man” – the confluence of Sport and Gaming probably dates back to this instance given the common first person experience that both provide.

One of the reasons why Sport has mass appeal is it’s very personal nature, since the narrative of a match involves combat and a desire to win. From this emerge heroes, which makes rivalries almost an inevitable. Gaming is similar as a consumer experience – in the design of on-screen animation, the plotlines & characters of the narrative, and, the instantaneous thrill of wining (or losing).   This paper starts by looking at the reasons behind the explosive growth of Gaming over the past two decades – driven mainly by access to reliable, and affordable, smart devices (be they consoles, desktops/laptops, and, most recently, mobiles) and telecom data connectivity (both 3G and 4G).

We will present this White Paper on October 29 with some of the organizations whose best practices we included in it.