Rich Duncan, Head of Business Development Racing & Sports Betting at PA Media, and Flavien Guillocheau, CEO at PandaScore, emphasised why they believe the popularity of esports continues to surge.
Following the recent announcement of a strategic partnership being struck between PA Media and PandaScore, Duncan gave an interview at September’s Betting on Sports conference underlining the importance of the deal.
He stated: “From PA’s perspective, esports is different to traditional sports in the way that esports audiences consume content is very different as well. We recognised early on that in order to do esports right and to do it justice, we needed to partner with someone who really understood it and was really doing it well.
“At PA Media, we have 40 different sports, mostly ‘traditional sports’ at the moment, that we collect masses of live content for. esports is ubiquitous now, if you look at it anywhere in the last two years, you will have heard something about esports, you may have heard stories in the news about prize pools on Fortnite etc.
“Punters have begun to accumulate this idea tacitly that esports is something that is taking place, and that something is there which has huge potential. But when you begin to delve into that, you begin to see what the potential is, and some of the numbers are quite staggering. As a digital platform, we can’t ignore that, and obviously we want to be a part of it.”
Guillocheau provided further insights into the importance of the strategic alliance, reiterating Duncan’s comments by stating the partnership has ‘put esports on the map.’
The PandaScore CEO touched on the expected growth of esports, concluding: “The betting industry is an industry that relies very heavily on trust and integrity, and for us, partnering with a company like PA is definitely a step forward in the right direction. It’s also allowed us to gain access to a large distribution network.
“This type of partnership allows us to put esports on the map, and gives us a greater level of credibility and access to a more diverse network of customers. Esports is going to be around for a while, and so we have to distribute an esports product as much as possible as it’s going to grow a lot.”