Tony Estanguet, co-president of the Paris bid committee for the 2024’s Olympics, has told the Associated Press he intends to with the International Olympic Committee to discuss including eSports competitions as official medal sports in the Paris game in 2024.
“We have to look at it because we can’t say, ‘It’s not us. It’s not about Olympics,’” Estanguet told the wire service. “The youth, yes they are interested in eSport and this kind of thing. Let’s look at it. Let’s meet them. Let’s try if we can find some bridges. I don’t want to say ‘no’ from the beginning. I think it’s interesting to interact with the IOC, with them, the eSports family, to better understand what the process is and why it is such a success.”
The move is part of a growing trend by the Olympic Committee to recognize eSports. The IOC recognizes the eSports Asian Games. Forty-five national delegations and about 10,000 players took part in the most recent Asian games three years ago in Incheon, South Korea.
The Olympic Council of Asia has also announced that eSports will be a medal sport at the 2022 Asian Games in China.
However, IOC president Thomas Bach, has not fully backed eSports at the games.
“We are not yet 100 percent clear whether eSports is really sport, with regard to physical activity and what it needs to be considered sport,” Bach told Inside the Games in a recent interview.
In another matter, Nielsen Entertainment has debuted an analytics platform that will track eSports data to help sponsors and advertisers have a better understanding of the industry’s growth and engagement.
“There’s a high demand for reliable, independent measurement of value in eSports,” Howard Appelbaum, the president of Nielsen Entertainment, said in a press release. “We’re excited to enhance our client offerings and provide the industry with solutions that will help guide and optimize investment decisions in this exciting, growing space.”
Nielsen has developed Esport24, a syndicated sponsorship tracking service for eSports tournaments. The service measures brand exposure in eSports tournaments representing a variety of titles, event formats and geographic locations based on the same methodology that allows traditional sports rights holders and brands to quantify value and benchmark performance, the release said.
Nielsen has also created an eSports advisory board of industry stakeholders who will provide insight to help shape the future of eSports audience measurement and valuation. Members include representatives from ESL, ESPN, Facebook, FIFA, Major League Gaming/Activision Blizzard, NBA 2K League, The Next Level, Sony PlayStation, Turner, Twitch, Twitter, Unilever and Google YouTube.
