{"id":227812,"date":"2019-04-30T08:33:00","date_gmt":"2019-04-30T15:33:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/?post_type=wherenext&#038;p=227812"},"modified":"2024-05-10T05:57:03","modified_gmt":"2024-05-10T12:57:03","slug":"comcast-enters-growing-market-with-50-million-e-sports-arena","status":"publish","type":"wherenext","link":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/publications\/wherenext\/comcast-enters-growing-market-with-50-million-e-sports-arena","title":{"rendered":"Comcast Enters Growing Market with $50 Million E-sports Arena"},"author":501,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"sync_status":"","episode_type":"","audio_file":"","castos_file_data":"","podmotor_file_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1001,971,121242],"tags":[340422,11272,281,161212],"department":[488812],"wherenext-category":[],"industry":[],"class_list":["post-227812","wherenext","type-wherenext","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commercial","category-location-strategy","category-telecommunications","tag-competitive-gaming","tag-demographics","tag-location-intelligence","tag-market-development","department-emerging-technologies"],"acf":{"short_description":"No longer a niche interest, e-sports, or competitive gaming, is attracting big-name investors. How do companies evaluate the market opportunity?","pdf":{"host_remotely":false,"file":"","file_url":""},"flexible_content":[{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"In January 2021, telecom giant Comcast Corp. will open a $50 million, 3,500-seat e-sports venue\u2014the largest video gaming arena in the US\u2014in its home city of Philadelphia, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2019-03-25\/comcast-places-50-million-bet-on-esports-arena-in-philadelphia\">Bloomberg reports<\/a>.\r\n\r\nComcast certainly isn't alone. In 2018, a who's who of big names\u2014from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2018\/12\/19\/from-michael-jordan-to-drake-athletes-celebrities-invested-millions-esports.html\">Michael Jordan to Drake to Mark Cuban<\/a>\u2014invested in the e-sports market, joined by established companies and venture capitalists."},{"acf_fc_layout":"sidebar","layout":"standard","image_reference":null,"image_reference_figure":"","spotlight_image":null,"section_title":"","spotlight_name":"","position":"Right","content":"<strong>Article Snapshot:<\/strong> Internet and media giant Comcast places a big bet on e-sports in a move that underscores the demographic and psychographic components of investing in growing pop culture phenomena.","snippet":""},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"As businesses worldwide plan ventures in new and established markets, they start by gauging demand and market potential. Much of this groundwork is done using technologies powered by location intelligence, IoT data, and AI.\r\n\r\n<strong>Segmentation Insight<\/strong>\r\n\r\nThe cable giant's foray into e-sports comes as the market surpasses $1 billion in global revenue, according to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gamesindustry.biz\/articles\/2019-02-12-newzoo-global-esports-market-will-exceed-USD1-billion-in-2019\">analysts at Newzoo<\/a>. About 10 percent of that revenue came from merchandise and tickets, and Comcast's announcement appears to be a bet that such revenue will rise.\r\n\r\nMeasuring the market for e-sports in cities around the globe may be a new challenge, but techniques that guide any business expansion still apply. To determine the size of potential markets, companies typically examine demographic data first, assessing population characteristics such as age, income, and projected growth.\r\n\r\nFor more nuanced analysis, business leaders layer in psychographic details, which reveal any number of consumer characteristics. In the case of e-sports, this includes how much time people spend online and how many hours a week they devote to video games.\r\n\r\nAccording to Cindy Elliot in \"<a href=\"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/publications\/wherenext\/confidence-in-new-markets\/\">Finding the Confidence to Grow a Business<\/a>,\" this kind of location intelligence drives stronger investments:"},{"acf_fc_layout":"blockquote","content":"The primary engine of that intelligence is a planning tool called a geographic information system (GIS), which maps the location of\u2014and relationships between\u2014consumer trends, spending patterns, and other data in potential markets.\r\n\r\nWith modern GIS technology, bank planners [for example] can see the demographic and psychographic characteristics of ZIP codes, cross-reference those with a targeted customer profile, and choose a branch location that serves the highest concentration of those ideal customers."},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"In the case of e-sports, business planners could use GIS-driven psychographic reports to find gamers as well as potential spectators for gaming tournaments. They could also map out how companies are marketing their brands through e-sports, since marketing represents 40 percent of the industry's spending, according to Newzoo. That data could reveal sales and partnership opportunities for venue owners.\r\n\r\n(For a look at how business leaders use location intelligence, read <a href=\"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/en-us\/location-intelligence\">this e-book<\/a>.)\r\n\r\n<strong>Human Weather Analytics<\/strong>"},{"acf_fc_layout":"form","form_type":"aside","form_position":"Right","form_title":"THE ESRI BRIEF","form_desc":"A biweekly email connecting senior executives and business leaders with thought-provoking articles on location intelligence and critical technology trends.","form_button_label":"Sign up now","form_content":"https:\/\/go.pardot.com\/l\/82202\/2017-10-12\/jw1bmb","form_tag":"low-commitment-form\/sign-up-form"},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"Innovative executives go beyond basic analyses by adding new forms of location insight to their market reports. For instance, a company planning an e-sports venue could use demographic and psychographic reports to identify the city with the highest population of gamers and gaming fans. Then, to understand where <em>within<\/em> that city to place a gaming arena, planners might turn to an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/en-us\/iot\/overview\">IoT<\/a> data source called human weather.\r\n\r\nAccording to Jim Young, author of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/publications\/wherenext\/new-forecast-human-weather\/\">A New Forecast: Human Weather<\/a>, human weather includes anonymous information that reveals preferences of people who frequent any area of a city. He writes,"},{"acf_fc_layout":"blockquote","content":"Companies are learning much from the location exhaust generated by mobile applications that use location awareness. . . . Third-party providers aggregate and anonymize that information, then serve it out as geographic, or spatial, data so companies can do things like call up storefront locations and see what retail traffic looks like at their own locations and those of competitors, comparing today's traffic to the previous week's or last month's."},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"Planning executives might supplement the view of human weather with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/publications\/wherenext\/social-media-and-targeted-advertising\/\">social media analysis<\/a> by mapping where posts about e-sports or other activities are most prevalent\u2014even at what time of the day they're most popular. By identifying geographic hot spots of gaming activity, executives are able to get hyperlocal, finding pockets of e-sports interest within the region.\r\n\r\n<strong>More Insight from AI <\/strong>\r\n\r\nA final layer of analysis involves <a href=\"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/en-us\/artificial-intelligence\">artificial intelligence<\/a>. Companies now have access to aerial imagery of all kinds\u2014from satellites, planes, and drones. Using AI tools that decipher patterns, executives can analyze imagery to reveal, for example, city parking lots with high activity rates, possibly pointing to an area with the best potential for an arena.\r\n\r\nResearch shows that all these analysis techniques\u2014from basic demographics to AI-based analysis of drone imagery\u2014are on the rise. Among retailers, for instance, 75 percent of companies consider location intelligence important to their business. This number is up from 40 percent in 2017, according to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rsrresearch.com\/research\/location-intelligence-in-retail-the-value-of-where\">RSR Research<\/a>.\r\n\r\nAs competition continues its march through all industries, business executives looking for solid investments are turning to location intelligence. Stacked with advances like AI and IoT data, the context of location empowers leaders to more precisely gauge potential in markets they plan to reach."}],"references":null},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.9 (Yoast SEO v25.9) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Comcast Embraces E-sports, Spectator Gaming with Planned Philadelphia Arena<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Comcast plans a $50 million e-sports arena in Philadelphia, which will host competitive gaming events for a growing demographic.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/publications\/wherenext\/comcast-enters-growing-market-with-50-million-e-sports-arena\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta 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