Comparing traditional sports and electronic sports

Electronic sports (eSports) viewership numbers have been growing over the years. Video games such as League of Legends, Counter Strike: Global Offensive, or Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft have a large following. During the League of Legends regular season matches, 250,000 people regularly tune in to watch the games. Professional players such as Enrique “Xpeke” Cedeno-Martinez have 470,000 Twitter followers. In this study, we built two visualizations to explore similarities and differences between eSports and traditional sports. We focused on the salaries earned by eSports players and the emergence of a new way of interacting with professional players via live streaming. We then compared how fan loyalties differ between the two fields.

Name thesis:degree_name

M.S.

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Computer Science

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2015

Author dc:creator

• Karakus, Efe Can

• League of Legends
• Electronic Sports
• Esports

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2015 Efe Karakus

Language dc:language

en

Handle dc:identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/78406

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/78406