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Message: [QUOTE="walsh2012, post: 5322116, member: 7048"] It's very cool and smart that this administration turned down millions of dollars and uniquely eye-grabbing media exposure for football and basketball just to spend roughly the same amount of money they turned down on esports. I'm glad Kent was watching pre-covid Real Sports segments over the holidays. But if he had [URL='https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Daily/Issues/2023/05/22/Esports/league-championship-series-esports-decline.aspx']paid attention[/URL] to any [URL='https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/20/technology/e-sports-revenue-video-gaming.html']reporting[/URL] on the [URL='https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2022-12-08/esports-hype-fading-investors-sponsors-dry-up']industry done after[/URL] the days of toilet paper hoarding and Tiger King, he would know that [URL='https://technical.ly/startups/nerd-street-esports-bankruptcy-founding-philly/']Americans are not interested in esports[/URL]. It is niche content with most of its interest generated in [URL='https://www.statista.com/statistics/673740/share-of-esports-viewers-by-region-worldwide/']international markets[/URL]. But in the interest of being good faith, let's concede the argument that, yes, [URL='https://www.statista.com/statistics/490480/']esports interest is projected to rise worldwide[/URL]. Sure that's true, but here's something else that's proven to be rising worldwide - the global population. Is the projected esports interest growing at an equal rate? If there are more esports fans coming in the future, are they going to make a larger or smaller percentage of the worldwide population? Being - in the interest of transparency - on my second drink pregaming for the NFL playoffs, I've rendered myself unable slash aggressively unwilling to run that data. But let's consider a hypothetical where it is. This doesn't really have an affect on Syracuse's positioning. Here's my first issue, and it goes back to this projected interest rise. Being on my third drink now and less capable and willing to know this for certain, it feels that - while these numbers account for fans coming in - they ignore the idea that there are people they're including in these projections likely going out. If you're currently still reading this, congratulations on being old. This is not a put down, as I am becoming older and older everyday, and hope to be older than I currently am everyday. So as an increasingly older old person, was there a time in your life where you liked video games? And did a series of events in your life - getting married, having kids, receiving larger work responsibilities, buying a house, obsessively manicuring the lawn of said house, getting really into history channel documentaries on World War 2 - that resulted in you becoming less interested? This is a difficult statistic to quantify, but it's not exactly a stretch to say that people generally age out of video games. So as I crack open drink five, I'd like to point out how the vast majority of esports' audience is [URL='https://www.researchgate.net/figure/US-eSports-viewers-by-age-group-Source-40_fig1_333118114']under thirty[/URL]. The [URL='https://www.mediaculture.com/insights/the-face-of-fandom-unveiling-the-demographics-of-diehard-sports-fans']average age of sports fans is much older[/URL]. And while that report doesn't directly reference college sports, Syracuse has a much larger amount of alumni than current or prospective students. Of course not every fan attended SU, but this statement is true regardless of any school that hasn't opened within the twenty years. Putting all this together, most Syracuse fans are just not interested in esports and that delta doesn't appear to be substantially closing anytime soon. There is no reason to assume why there would ever be a significant amount of the growing esports fandom to ever have any interest in Syracuse. Its fan base mostly exists in Asian markets. Why would young people in Korea, the Philippines, China, and Japan to watch a stream of Syracuse esports considering the time differential? Unless they roster a team of Pokimanes and Amouranths, they won't. To wrap this all up, as I finish drink six, I see this as just another example of those bureaucrats outside the athletics department at Syracuse making decisions that show their boneheaded understanding of the college sports landcape. I think it's silly to think there's any signfigant financial viabllity in college esports to make this sort of investment worthwhile. I can't help but think there was some [URL='https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDOI0cq6GZM']Lyle Lanley-type figure - dragging a piano into the Chancellor's office[/URL] and convinvng Kent this would make us the next Brockway, Ogdenville, or North Haverbrook. My apologies to the brain dead slobs of the board, as I proudly consider myself within your ranks. But the history of Fab Melo's suspension, the peral clutching of Weitsman, Kent's backing of that ridiclious new college sports league, and now five million into some flashy venture with little to no upside. This agonizgly-long post is concludes with a heavy sigh and a shake of my head as the residue of drink seven pools in a pint glass. This administrators at Syracuse just seem incapable of ever getting sports right. Thanks for reading. [/QUOTE]

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