Fans staying with eSports as they age, says Spanish survey

The average eSports fan in Spain is a 24 year-old male who spends more than five hours a day on surfing the internet and is a heavy user of social media, according to a study unveiled at the Madrid Gaming Experience event for Modern Times Group-owned eSports leader ESL and Telefónica/Movistar, ESL’s partner for the Spanish market.

The study showed that the audience for eSports in the 25-35 year-old range has increased by 7% in the last year, while the audience in the core 20-24 age range has remained stable.

Movistar interpreted the figures as providing evidence that fans of eSports are maintaining their enthusiasm as they grow older and that the discipline has no fixed upper limit to the age of its audience.

The study found that over 60% of the eSports audience spend over five hours a day connected to the internet and that 99% use the web as their main channel of information.

Use of the TV amid eSports fans was limited to 45%, suggesting that the eSports industry and related brands would have more impact in focusing their marketing activities on digital platforms.

Over 75% of the eSports audience used digital platforms such as Twitch and YouTube along with social networks, particularly Twitter, indicating, said Movistar, the importance for eSports media groups to maintain instantaneous bidirectional communication with fans via digital platforms.

Between 70-80% of those surveyed purchased desktop computers and smartphones in the last year, these being the main devices used to consume eSports.

Counter Strike: Global Offfensive was the most popular game in eSports, attracting over 60% of the audience, followed by League of Legends and Overwatch.

The second Estudio de Audencia de eSports de España surveyed around 10,000 respondents among the audience for ESL’s channels in Spain.

“For Telefónica to become the leading provider of fibre connectivity for the eSports sector and to form part of the development of this industry together with ESL, is, beyond being a strategic objective, now a reality as this study has shown,” said Dante Caccatore, head of communication, commercial and client experience for Telefónica.