Esports: Pay to watch will be an inevitable trend

With the esports scene constantly evolving, the future of tournament reporting will also change dramatically. Esports industry expert Paul ‘Redeye’ Chaloner believes that “pay-to-watch will eventually happen.” (pay-per-view)

When the controversy over Facebook’s monopoly on ESL tournaments broke out, Redeye said he was threatened by disgruntled fans when he tried to explain that ESL’s move was purely a business decision – something some fans don’t. acceptable.

When chatting with Richard Lewis on the talk show Dexerto. Redeye explained that while Twitch is a “great service” for fans to watch tournaments, people get it wrong.

With major esports tournaments costing millions to host, companies like ESL must get their capital back no matter what: through advertising or broadcasting rights.

While fans complain about the long ads at events, Redeye explains it’s either exclusive, as we’ve seen with Facebook. But with esports continuing to grow, “pay-per-view” is likely to become the new trend.

“Pay-per-view happens eventually. For me, it will happen”, continued Redeye, “The broadcasting rights will be sold to a number of parties, and of course, you (the fans) will be upset about it: you will now have to pay to watch it. Okay.”

“You would think ‘now they only have 10,000 viewers’ – but the point is, they have 10,000 paying viewers – and would rather have 10,000 paying viewers than 500,000 no pay.”

For many fans, Twitch has become the default website for watching esports content. And while there have been calls to reduce exclusivity on Twitch, Redeye thinks Facebook isn’t ready for that challenge yet.

“I think Facebook’s product launch is still incomplete,” he continued, “imagine a world where Facebook launches its stream with everything ready to watch.”

Most fans still believe that major events will be shown on Twitch, although it is not exclusive. But the reality is that other platforms are gradually growing and vying for this market share.

With tournament quality and content improving, stadiums filled with fans, and millions watching at home, we shouldn’t be too surprised if a pay-per-view model will be rolled out in the near future.