Olympics Esports opening ceremony scrapes past 1k concurrent viewers on YouTube

The Olympic Esports inaugural ceremony kicked off today, barely surpassing a peak of 1,000 concurrent YouTube viewers over the course of the grandiose event. Now a video on demandit sits at 10,000 total views several hours later.

It featured various live music and dance performances, as well as talks by members of the Olympic Council, the International Olympic Committee and the President of the Republic of Signapur! The in-person crowd was replete with suits and ties who probably attended the olympic esports forum – an invitation-only event packed with industry talks and brainstorming. That’s what the Olympics are all about, honey!

The Opening Ceremony, broadcast live on YouTube and on the official website of the Olympic Games, kicks off a series of competitive events. On one side, you have Chess, Street Fighter 6, Gran Turismo, and Fortnite, all games with genuine esports communities around the world. On the other hand you have Just Dance and Zwift. They’re not exactly boisterous esports games, but they’re popular nonetheless. The remaining games can be found in the corner without much of an esports scene to speak of. Games like Tic Tac Bow and Virtual Taekwondo developed by Refract Technologies, a leading company in national esports organizations (thanks gamerbraves).

Speaking on stage, Ng Ser Miang, a board member of the National Olympic Council of Singapore, said, “Over the next few days, you will enjoy the exciting finals of ten virtual Olympic sports. You will see exciting live demonstrations from the world’s top athletes. and players competing with [eachother].”

Miang would continue: “Olympic Esports Week will showcase how technology and gamification will create new opportunities for sports. At the same time, it will highlight the potential of eSports and gaming.”

International Olympic committee president Thomas Bach would be next to speak, addressing the crowd via a pre-recorded message. “The next few days will be a time to make history. A celebration of the best in virtual sports and esports. A time for gamers to show their excellence and their passion for sports. To all gamers I say, now is its time to shine.

The final speaker, His Excellency Halimah Yacob, would push a huge digital lever to kick off the event in earnest. Before doing so, Yacob would say: “We look forward to creating an unforgettable experience, where the world will witness the crowning of the first Olympic esports final winners in ten sports, and watch exciting exhibition matches in five others.” .

So if it wasn’t clear before, the olympics esports week is a half genuine competition to see who are the best esports athletes in various games, it’s also a technology and business expo where the cool bits in technology , games and sports can be mixed and seen. the merits of such collaboration in the future.

But with a seemingly low level of interest from online esports fans, how much legitimacy does this event really have? The Olympic Games have a lot of cachet when it comes to traditional sports, and maybe even virtual sports like virtual taekwondo, but will the world’s top Fortnite pros care about an Olympic esports medal? It seems unlikely at this point.

But who knows, maybe this is a test case. A way to get interest from non-gaming parties and build momentum. Whatever the case, our eyes will be on advancing the competition, even if not many others can say the same.