Global pandemic compels sport to move to esports: Understanding from brand extension perspective

The COVID-19 outbreak leads to the sudden lockdown of sports businesses across the world. Due to the difficulty of generating sports content as usual amid the global pandemic, some sports organizations around the world, resort to esports. Concretely, sports organizations let their professional athletes compete virtually in video games to produce competitive entertainment for the audience. Such “mixed” competitive entertainment attracts a high spectatorship and significant social media attention. This commentary seeks to provide a research-based explanation of the phenomenon and predict future developments. Copyright © 2020 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.