Henry Evans, J.D., M.A. on ESport Viewership and Participation Motivations

Henry Evans, J.D., M.A., an Instructor of the Sport Management Program at WSU, will speak in the third and final Sport Management Research Meeting of the Fall 2018 semester. His presentation, “Esport Viewership and Participation Motivations,” will occur 4-5 p.m. on Wednesday, November 7, in Cleveland Hall 255 in Pullman.

In 2017, over 80 million unique viewers tuned into the SKT-RNG Semi-final match during the League of Legends World Championship. Even more impressive are the more than 100 million players who log on to play League of Legends on a monthly basis. When these numbers are compared to traditional sport viewership and participation, it seems that eSports is beginning to dominate the market. Why? What makes eSports so exciting? This study investigated and compared the motivations for eSport consumption through the lens of the ERG theory of motivation in order to determine why eSport viewership and participation has grown and how eSports should be marketed to both viewers and participants.

Sport Management Research Meetings are organized by the Sport Management program at Washington State University. They occur monthly and feature faculty and student presentations of ongoing and completed research projects. Students and faculty from all programs are welcome to attend.

Those who miss the presentations but are interested in the topic can access the video archive of past presentations.