Streaming demand for eSports: Analysis of Counter-strike: Global offensive

Abstract

The eSports industry is growing at a rapid pace. The expansion of streaming services such as Twitch and YouTube Live played an important role in this leap and greatly contributed to the rise in popularity of electronic sports. Despite this success, there is no research on the topic of streaming demand of eSports to date. This paper aims to fill this gap using a demand approach of traditional sports to analyze the streaming demand of an eSports discipline, the Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. The dataset comprises 865 matches between 2018 and 2021. Multiple Linear Regressions are taken as econometric tools. Main findings indicate that eSports enthusiasts value factors such as quality of tournament, match quality, and individual skill of the athletes when watching matches. In addition, the obtained results reveal that the Uncertainty of Outcome plays a significant role at streaming broadcasts of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, where viewers prefer to watch those games in which there is a high level of competitiveness between the participants. Current research contributes to the existing eSports literature with a new framework for analyzing streaming demand. The empirical findings could be of the interest of tournament organizers as well as streaming platforms for maximizing audiences.