The current lockdown has seen the growth of a new type of eSports. This is where Sports and teams have used the existing professional gaming infrastructure to provide entertainment for fans starved of anything to watch.
For example, the Formula 1 eSports Challenge brought together current and retired drivers, along with celebrities and professional eGamers, to take part in virtual races that have been watched by up to three million people.
An interesting question is what will happen when the real-life action returns but fans are still not allowed to attend? Already we have seen some blending of virtual and real-life with EA Sports and VIZRT providing sound effects and superimposed images of virtual fans for returning La Liga games.
Gazing further into the future, this does throw up an interesting question around how far the real-life and virtual sport experience will start to blend? This led me to an interesting thought experiment about football management – who would be better, a football manager or the Wisdom of Fans channeled through virtual, real-time technology?
The ultimate eSports integration
It was the Danish Super League side AGF Aarhus that first got me thinking about this. When Danish football returned to action, AGF Aarhus created a stand of televisions showing 10,000 fans watching at home via Zoom.
Surely the ultimate eSports integration would be if the fans at home could pick teams and influence action in real-time. Whether that be football tactics or substitutions, calling plays in the NFL or advising on baseball pitches – let’s call it the Zoom Manager Collective.
If this was possible, would management decisions be better if they came from the combined knowledge of fans against one coach?
Manager vs Fans
While there is no doubt that football managers can display a stubborn streak, and refuse to make changes when everyone can see what needs to be done, theories on expertise would suggest that the best football manager still has the edge over the wisdom of fans – especially in real-time situations.
The idea of ‘chunking’ is one example of how an expert coach has the advantage over our Zoom Manager Collective. Sport is dynamic, with a constant formation/reformation of shapes as players and opponents react to what is happening. Watch enough of this and you start to recognise patterns, and before long relations emerge between these patterns.
Research has shown that a characteristic of experts is the ability to chunk these patterns together, so rather than see individual actions on the field, they see the whole. In other words, the steps from A to B to C to D can be chunked by an expert to recognise that D will happen even if they have only seen A.
This gives the expert coach the advantage over most people. They are interested in the process as much as the result and view the sport as a series of events leading to an outcome. Supporters on other hand work backwards from the outcome. So the likelihood is that the individual manager will see the game better than the combined Wisdom of Fans.
Perhaps even more importantly, football management is about building interpersonal relationships with players, something that can’t happen online among thousands. It is often this activity off the pitch that really makes the difference.
So football management for the average fan is likely to remain online or with friends down the pub. Which is probably just as well as who would supporters complain about if it was them making the decisions?
Is it such a crazy idea?
This was a fun thought experiment (filling in the time while we wait for the real action to re-start), but more seriously, are there other sports where such integration is not such a crazy idea?
Maybe motor racing is an option. In-race decisions such as pit-stops, tyre choice, and engine settings could be put the Wisdom of Fans while the day-to-day management of drivers continues within the team. For any team struggling to raise revenue this could be an interesting chargeable eSport integration option. Or even an upcoming driver could use this concept to raise the finance that is often needed to secure an F1 seat.
Sport.dat 