Summary: <p>Andrew Mauney joins us for an eSports update here in 2016. You can find him as Chryton throughout the video game world or as <a href="https://twitter.com/chrytonbaine">@chrytonbaine</a> on Twitter. Raw notes below:</p> <h2>How does it look now?</h2> <p>– Mergers/Acquisitions? <br> – Retirements? – first real “class” of esports players are retiring and either going to school or becoming coaches;<br> – collegiate?<br> – sponsorships of more mainstream products</p> <h2>Big news</h2> <p>– college scholarships<br> – Halo Championship for consoles<br> – eSports classified as a sport by international groups<br> – ESPN and Yahoo now have sports channels<br> – One of the biggest/longest running <a href="http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/starcraft-2/515168-sc2-proleague-discontinued-skt-kt-sgk-cj-disband">SC2 leagues shut down</a></p> <h2>Popular games of 2016</h2> <p>– Dota 2<br> – LoL hits 400 million viewers in 2016 [<a href="https://esports.yahoo.com/riot-nearly-400-million-viewers-watched-the-2016-league-of-legends-world-championship-210808028.html">Yahoo</a>]<br> – LoL World Championship Numbers [<a href="http://www.lolesports.com/en_US/articles/2016-league-legends-world-championship-numbers">lolesports</a>]<br> – CS:GO<br> – Hearthstone</p> <h2>What will be big in 2017</h2> <p>– Greater traction on TV? but doesn’t matter as much as VOD and live streaming will still dominate<br> – collegiate will grow; more scholarships and players. How will the NCAA react? <br> – how will the retired players stay with the sport?</p>
