Anticipated rivalry between Yahoo and ESPN in Esports coverage

With the release of Yahoo Esports last week, and the launch of Esports verticle at ESPN in January, the competition is heating up between these two giant companies in covering the huge market of Esports.

It’s not to anyone’s surprise right now that more big companies want to get the lion’s share out of this young industry. In addition to Yahoo and ESPN we have Amazon who bought Twitch in 2014 and helped spreading Esports as it is, as well as Intel with its Intel Extreme Masters championships, which gathered in this year’s edition more than 1 million concurrent viewers on Twitch.

The increased attention to Esports is expected, as we’ve read about how in 2015 alone there was more than 226 million viewers either passionate or occasional. Numbers like these are surely what’s attracting the big wigs of media and technology.

“Esports fans are early adopters when it comes to gadgets and using new media services and also don’t shy away from spending, Traditional media content companies are recognizing the esports audience as a sizable and valuable demographic to tap into.” Peter Warman, CEO of Newzoo.

Yahoo went and gathered a good number of experts in professional gaming and editors to introduce a live coverage with constant analysis and programs. ESPN as well promised “same level of quality content and journalism” that users of ESPN.com have come to expect from its coverage of traditional sports. So who’ll win this fight in the near future? this remains unseen.