Ask HN: Professional sports shutdown what will fill peoples leisure time now?

2 points·sigmaprimus··5 comments

During the last NHL strike, many TV providers broadcasted Poker tournaments, Texas Holdem exploded on the scene.

What less common forms of entertainment do you think will arise from this current sports hiatus?

Esports and their associated leagues have a big opportunity to possibly go more mainstream at the moment. They are well suited for this particular situation as big tournaments can be done fully remote. Some examples are The Call of Duty League announced that they will be continuing their season fully remote and I believe the Rocket League College Series is roughly already fully remote.

It's also an activity that people who are watching it can then participate in after the event.

Could be a big opportunity for some of the more accessible competitive games to be on "regular" TV or at the very least have huge live streams on Twitch/Youtube.

This is a great answer. I can see broadcasters buying licences from these teams, many of which are already owned by professional sports clubs.

I think that Twitch has already proved that there is an audience for this product.

I just wondered today if the crisis has led to an increase in social media engagement. If someone has numbers they could share I'm sure it would be interesting.

Perhaps people will go back to reading books.

I'm enjoying War and Peace on my Kindle.

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