The first day of the SBC Digital Summit is almost in the books, and this has been an incredibly successful launch. From the moment the virtual doors opened this morning, attendance has been extremely high, with the entire gaming industry coming together to work toward a post-coronavirus world. A lot of time and effort went into making sure that the conference would go off without a hitch, given the number of people that needed to connect, and the hard work has paid off. The afternoon schedule for the first day continued to supply an endless supply of data and information for the gaming ecosystem, covering a wide variety of topics that prove how resilient the space is, and how it plans on bouncing back once things are able to return to normal.
Getting things going for the afternoon presentations was Cillian Barry, managing director of Sportcaller. The company, which offers free-to-play (FTP) solutions for existing gaming companies such as William Hill, the Kindred Group and more, made the most of the coronavirus-forced downtime to review the market segment and determine what is, and what isn’t working. All evidence points to the fact that FTP offerings can help an operator both retain its customer base, as well as attract new users. The current downtime is allowing the company to refine its solutions, which will enable operators to even better service customers after COVID-19 is brought under control.
When that happens, there will be three stages of recovery for the industry. Things like esports and online gaming offerings will be able to get going first in stage one, followed by limited live sports activity in stage two. This could include Germany’s Bundesliga soccer in May and the PGA in June, which are currently in the works. Stage three will include a fully-blown relaunch of sports, but when this might happen is still uncertain. With a little bit of luck, this could perhaps take place within the next three months, with NFL football following its normal schedule beginning in September.
One of the biggest winners of the coronavirus pandemic has been esports. Unlike all other sports activity, esports has the unique advantage of being able to almost seamlessly transition to an online gaming sector with little downtime. Many esports tournaments are held in front of live audiences, but are still played over virtual connections, and these events can still take place while the majority of the world’s sports are on lockdown.