Abstract:
My thesis research is a comprehensive project looking at the evolution of media coverage
in professional and collegiate eSports. Using the methodology of participant observation and
interviewing allowed me to find commonalities between the answers of subjects and the data
given by other research on the media coverage of eSporting events. I used a theoretical approach
tailored toward media management and political economy to demonstrate how the understanding
of economics in eSports can further change the media coverage of eSporting events. Media
management, while primarily concerned with legacy media, is a theory with the potential to
explain the changes eSports is bringing to sports media coverage. The overarching purpose of
my thesis is to understand how both professional and collegiate sports coverage emerged from,
and responds to, the social practice of eSports, and turns that coverage into a viable form of
commercial media.
