(MENAFN- The Peninsula) Joelyn Baluyut |
The Peninsula
Doha: The growth of electronic sports or esports is booming and Qatar Tourism is in multiple conversations around partnerships in hosting such tournaments in the country, in a bid to attract tourists and fans to Qatar.
“Esports is a hot topic and the big question is for tourism on how do I make it not just another event but how does it actually mobilise people to travel to the event,” said Qatar Tourism, COO Berthold Trenkel during“Sports and Tourism: A Win-Win for National Growth?” session at Qatar Economic Forum, Powered by Bloomberg recently.
He described esports as“quite amazing.”“You see some of those tournaments and you have these of course obviously indoor sports halls filled with 10,000, 15,000 people, watching what at the end of the day is happening in a computer and on a screen,” the COO explained.
In May, the country hosted the biggest EA Sports FIFA22 Lan event in the region – EA Sports Champions Cup powered by Ooredoo. A large crowd was also seen where fans watched as the tournament unfolds at Aspire Zone.
Trenkel also said that there are 'super loyal fans' that spend money to watch the events to follow their teams. Qatar Tourism has been studying the partnership of esports tournaments for the last 24 months. He also mentioned that although the competition using video games is male dominated, a number of female players are also participating with a ratio of 60-40.
According to 2022 Global Esports & Live Streaming Market Report, esports will generate nearly $1.38bn in revenues globally by the end of the year wherein China accounts for nearly a third of worldwide esports revenues.
“In 2022, the global esports audience will grow +8.7% year on year to reach 532 million. Esports enthusiasts — those who watch esports content more than once a month will account for just over 261 million,” the report said.
Another factor on hosting esports event is the Internet speed of the country. Speedtest Global Index May 22 report said that Qatar ranked third in the mobile global performance with 117.61mbps, while rank 37th at fixed broadband with 88.68 mbps. Speedtest Global Index rankings are based on median download speed to best reflect the speeds a user is likely to achieve in a market.
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