Government support for esports is on the rise, as this nascent new industry demonstrates its potential for employment, tourism, and new technology. It is the latter that convinced the UK government to award a £4M ($5.2M USD) grant to the Weavr Consortium, a broadcast technology project led by ESL 
UK, which will show the first of its labors at ESL Birmingham, which begins May 31.
To be specific, Weavr has at its disposal £5.8M ($7.5M) in funding, with the remaining £1.8M ($2.3M) having been gathered from the consortium’s partners. These include a number of private UK companies specializing in VR/AR, AI, and data and analytics technology, as well as the University of York. ESL UK and the university launched a teaching and research program in June 2017, with the institution known for its courses and research into video game design and computer science.
“To make anything successful or to make research relevant, largely speaking they need to collaborate with industry,” James Dean, managing director for ESL UK told The Esports Observer. “At the end of the day, the [esports] industry is nascent, growing, and very exciting. It’s evolving as well; things are changing all the time, from the business models but also just the IP, the games that are being played and how the audience behaves.”
“To make anything successful or to make research relevant, largely speaking they need to collaborate with industry.”
The Weavr Consortium was awarded the sports and technology portion of the Industry Strategy Challenge Fund’s (ISCF) demonstrator program. In total, the ISCF aims to invest £33M ($43M) in businesses and researchers, to develop new products and services that exploit immersive technologies.
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While the word “immersive” immediately conjures up images of VR headsets, researchers, such as those from the University of York, have actually identified three levels of immersion: visual and sensorial (VR headsets, 3D, sounds), cognitive immersion (the use of and presentation of data), and social immersion.
“The Weavr experience, if you like, is designed to take all three immersions and then personalize them as much as possible,” explained Dean. “The tagline is ‘hyper personalization.’ What we mean by that is that you as an individual will have your own preferences, your own way of sharing, your own interests around that tournament.”
“One of the only missing elements of the esports ecosystem is the fact that it’s got this gaping hole in terms of monetization.”
The Weavr Consortium is not a company, nor is it building a commercial product. As a demonstrator project, the goal is to research and build a framework that sits behind existing tools and consumer devices, allowing the user to transition from platform to device. Right now the esports industry contains a myriad of websites and apps for data, viewing enhancement, etc., but as Dean puts it, nothing that allows a user to transition between platforms or devices.
“One of the only missing elements of the esports ecosystem is the fact that it’s got this gaping hole in terms of monetization,” he explained. “The whole industry is feeling that. We’re basically overdelivering engagement with a very passionate fanbase, on a regular basis, and effectively not getting paid for it.”
Non-endemic sponsors, such as State Farm, Shell, or T-Mobile may be flooding into the space, Dean believes brands such as these are the ones getting value for money. Since paywalling esports broadcasts is currently a no go, the industry will need to look at how it currently delivers value to fans and audiences, and work on how to re-tailor that to the broadcast. One example is Dota 2’s The International, which exceeded $25M last year through the sales of in-game fixtures and rewards. “That’s an exact example of how the monetization will develop within esports, and into sports and other properties,” said Dean.
“…Any other tournament operator can have a branded product using the same concepts and framework that Weavr has developed.”
The consortium would seek to create 45 tech-focused jobs over the next two years, as well as services and platforms that will generate UK-based revenue. These might include a new AI technique from the University of York, a new UI function from virtual reality agency REWIND, or a new way of analyzing pro player data from ESL.
“In a way, ESL will have a branded product,” said Dean. “But at the same time, any other tournament operator can have a branded product using the same concepts and framework that Weavr has developed. Obviously, we will have a proof of concept there, and if some brave soul says ‘well we’re just going to copy the hell out of that,’ good luck to them.”
While the ROI for Weavr companies is the chance to build new technology and monetize an audience in a different way. For a pre-Brexit UK government and economy, which faces one of its most turbulent periods in decades, it is the chance to fan the flames for a wave of new startups and to offer more to existing businesses.
“The danger was that we would come across as too much as developing a product, and that wasn’t the point.”
It’s worth noting that Weavr was one out of three projects awarded grants by the ISCF, the other two being a project in development for London’s Natural History Museum and Science Museum, and another led by the Royal Shakespeare Company. Luckily, the organization hearing these pitches, Innovate UK, had built out a professional panel from a large number of sectors, including videogaming.
The approach taken by Dean and the other project leaders was to use traditional sports as a reference. Concepts were conjured up, such as a spectator at home being able to fly across a stadium at will, or having a virtual coach “sitting next” to them, who can make sense of what’s on screen to help your own gameplay.
“That’s the approach we took, and we tried to put a video together to try and visualize that, or create some understanding,” explained Dean. “The danger was that we would come across as too much as developing a product, and that wasn’t the point. What we wanted to do was ensure they really understand that this is an exploratory project, a demonstration of how technology can come to play within esports, but also sports beyond.”
