Ferrari Velas Esports Series North America Regional Finals Is Here (Live Stream)

As always, no one is interested in esports

As I mentioned in an post a while ago, e-sports is not presented very well. Give me a real, anchored menu for e-sports with: program, standings, drivers info etc. and I will most likely start to follow. At least, I will be a prospect for it. Gathering a target group takes time. Presentation is key.

I like sports. And I need a simple two-clicks way of seeing the latest updates and upcoming events. Referring to SGP or LFM is not what I'm looking for. It works but it does not appeal. It's stuck behind a steam connected login.

This is what appeals to me. Easy to find. Grouped. Two clicks max. Public.

I'm also not interested in e-sports at all but I wonder if there's no interest here at racedepartment or also on other sim-related news sites? I couldn't care less what some wheel-jockeys at home behind their toys are virtually capable of tbh. But perhaps I'm just starting to become the "old man yells at cloud" type of guy, what do I know.

F_B said:

I'm also not interested in e-sports at all but I wonder if there's no interest here at racedepartment or also on other sim-related news sites? I couldn't care less what some wheel-jockeys at home behind their toys are virtually capable of tbh. But perhaps I'm just starting to become the "old man yells at cloud" type of guy, what do I know.

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I think the number of people really focused on becoming sim aliens is pretty low tbh. I'd rather be faster in the real world and put effort into my motorcycling lines and techniques as they have real consequence. Then again I'm also getting into old man shouts at cloud territory as the age creeps towards 50 so also know I'm never going to get near alien sim racers now. My prime era was setting fast laps in GPL.

Romandevison said:

As always, no one is interested in esports

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great stream, yes not much people watching but they watch the youtuber streams.

Yay. More shoved in pretend race drivers esports.

Why one would watch this over any other real sports? This is a question that the organizers need to answer.

Cheesenium said:

Why one would watch this over any other real sports?

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- Much easier access to broadcasts, as a lot of real life racing is either paywalled and/or hard to find streams of.
- More parity between competitors, as the platform guarantees spec/BoP cars, and the drivers are often very close in skill level.
- Being able to play the same games as the eSports drivers gives you a greater appreciation of what it takes to go as fast as these players do.
- Ultimately, entertainment is the reason why anyone would watch sport instead of playing it, real or virtual. If the race succeeds in being entertaining for the reasons above, it's just as real on an entertainment level as any other sport.

JayOTT said:

- Much easier access to broadcasts, as a lot of real life racing is either paywalled and/or hard to find streams of.

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Depends on what you want to watch. GT3 streams everythin on Youtube, Indycar can be watched live on their website and F1 including it's feeder races is on TV for free at least where I'm from. So is MotoGP.

Smaller series are harder to find but then there are no eSports versions of those either.

JayOTT said:

- More parity between competitors, as the platform guarantees spec/BoP cars, and the drivers are often very close in skill level.

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I don't understand this obsession with BoP personally, but GT3 are just as BoP'd in RL as in ACC, Indycar is a Spec series and F1 is on the best way to regulating the cars down to become a de-facto spec series.

I see how an ongoing dominance of one team is boring (like mercedes in F1 the past years) but having a dominant team for some time and then seeing them being overtaken by another team is highy interresting (to me).

JayOTT said:

- Being able to play the same games as the eSports drivers gives you a greater appreciation of what it takes to go as fast as these players do.

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Like going on the grass in iracing to cool the tires? What do i care what anybody plays? I'd rather watch Bortolotti going full send through Eau Rouge in the Lamborghini and try to copy that or try to reach Verstappen's race pace than do that with some eSports driver nobody ever heard of.

All of these are my personal takes, not universal truths. If you enjoy watching eSports and find it entertaining, that's fine, but don't act like it's in any way on the same level as the real thing. The ACC sponsor stickers on the real SRO GT3 cars probably sell way more copies than the whole of the ACC eSports scene.

The biggest problem they have is they think "every motorsport guy" will be sold into this gimmick. People would rather be interested in building their race craft, do lessons, do track days and so on. Real stuff that adds value to you. Not video gaming!! The few hours I get per day I would rather be playing than watching someone else. Its that simple. The few people that watch these esports streams just happen to mostly be random people that do no virtual motorsport. They are just happy to watch and pass time, no interest in rules and regulations, they ask the same annoying questions on the chat all the time. Very clueless people on what they are watching. That is your esports market.

Cheesenium said:

Yay. More shoved in pretend race drivers esports.

Why one would watch this over any other real sports? This is a question that the organizers need to answer.

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+10 years ago I caught myself following almost an entire season of the Race 07 pro online series on the defunct MotorsportsTV as well as the following year on a national sports channel in a regional series.

Exclusively due to presentation, table positions, driver info etc. also in telly teasers. All together to essentially create myth formation, which forms the basis for further curiosity.

Myself a crooked idiot, at the age of 7 I grabbed the sports pages in the newspaper every early Monday morning, photographed the pages with sports results and made sure I knew all the tables in my head, standings tables, top scorer lists for both cycling, football, athletics, handball and basket (it's still a mystery to me that I didn't detect some form of asperger's syndrome in a test).
But that way it instantly created tons of visualizations of myth formation, entirely based on the names. And a BIG thing then entering venues in cycling, soccer, motorsports, e.g. knowing the names and often having a picture of each participant.

The ability to present a league in an easily accessible format with positions, driver information, statistics, etc. that can be easily understood at any time is a start.

Random RD teasers aren't, and it's a shame for the pro drivers.

Must admit it's my first ever time clicking on this type of RD article content and it was just in curiosity in hope to find a clear single-look overview of championship, standings, calendar, drivers, team info and so on.
Which was not the case, unfortunately.

Is that too difficult, RD?

Gevatter said:

Depends on what you want to watch. GT3 streams everythin on Youtube, Indycar can be watched live on their website and F1 including it's feeder races is on TV for free at least where I'm from. So is MotoGP.

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I agree, plus there's a mountain of stuff on YouTube both highlights and full races of all sorts of series.
Which is why I suggest these esports races would be better served during the off season.
Yes sometimes there are good virtual races with decent presentation, but I feel they're few and far between.
Audiences are normally quite small unless it's a well known streamers channel so IMO the returns do not justify the investment.
The only upside I see for sim racing is that it might bring some people over to our neck of the woods.

stenovitz said:

Is that too difficult, RD?

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Stay tuned recap article is coming shortly. All previous rounds of FES are covered with a pre- and a review.

JayOTT said:

- Much easier access to broadcasts, as a lot of real life racing is either paywalled and/or hard to find streams of.
- More parity between competitors, as the platform guarantees spec/BoP cars, and the drivers are often very close in skill level.
- Being able to play the same games as the eSports drivers gives you a greater appreciation of what it takes to go as fast as these players do.
- Ultimately, entertainment is the reason why anyone would watch sport instead of playing it, real or virtual. If the race succeeds in being entertaining for the reasons above, it's just as real on an entertainment level as any other sport.

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Sorry, those are not valid reasons for me to watch.
1. I can play these games myself, why would I want to watch someone playing the same game that I can boot up and play?
2. If I want to watch someone going fast with cars, why should I watch esports when there is a lot of real-life racing available?
3. If I want to watch esports, I rather watch Dota, Starcraft or other proper esports games with interesting mechanics, players with personality and something you can't replicate in real life.

Romandevison said:

As always, no one is interested in esports

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Really? You should check out the F1 esport series over on YouTube. There are currently over 24000 viewers on the live stream as I write this.

Edit: Just checked again; 34500 viewers after the race started.

Skinny McLean said:

Really? You should check out the F1 esport series over on YouTube. There are currently over 24000 viewers on the live stream as I write this.

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Well contradicting my earlier post about low viewing figures it's now over 33,000 watching it live.
And there's none of the well known streamers involved.

Skinny McLean said:

Really? You should check out the F1 esport series over on YouTube. There are currently over 24000 viewers on the live stream as I write this.

Edit: Just checked again; 34500 viewers after the race started.

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As much as a large chunk of RD regulars may deny it, you can see from this that sim racing eSports is indeed popular to watch. Just because RD doesn't cover the F1 series in articles, doesn't mean the series isn't a huge deal.

Lol I see nothing popular with livestreams
F1 esports is on a different league. Its multiplatform. Each platforms sells very well. It has an established market because it not a sim and never has it sold itself as one. That is why the devs will not change that approach. Make it a true sim and you will get less.

Yesterday the 8hr of Bahrain of the Virtual Le Mans series was broadcasted. Now I know about the MSG debacle, but this was 100% the best esports broadcast I have seen until now. I'm going to watch the whole season. I even watched the 20mins summary after the race finished.
Only 700 viewers on YT, though. The MSG debacle set aside, the production itself deserved a wider audience imo.