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With the expansion of the esports industry, there is a growing body of literature examining the motivations and behaviors of consumers and participants. The current study advances this line of research by considering esports consumption through an economic framework, which has been underutilized in this context. Specifically, the “attention economy” is introduced as a theoretical approach—which operates with the understanding that due to increased connectivity and availability of information, it is the attention of consumers that becomes a scarce resource for which organizations must compete. Using data from the Twitch streaming platform, the results of econometric analysis further highlight the importance of structural factors in drawing attention from online viewers. As such, this research advances the theoretical and empirical understanding of online viewership behaviors, while also providing important ramifications for both esports and traditional sport organizations attempting to capture the attention of users in the digital realm.

Following decades of significant economic and political reform, a once-closed China has emerged as the world’s fastest growing and arguably most interconnected political economic system. In the context of what has been termed a “post-socialist” transition, China’s sport system has similarly undergone rapid marketization (bringing in market actors and action). In this article, we examine the changing state and function of football (soccer) within this period of post-socialist transition. We provide a critical analysis of recent (c. 2010–2017) private and state-based initiatives to develop the commercial viability, international interconnectivity, and cultural significance of football (soccer). Drawing upon theories of cultural economy as developed by the globalization theorist Arjun Appadurai, we provide an historical and conceptual investigation of the strategic efforts to nationally imagine football culture as, and within, transitioning China. To do this, we examine how state actors and private intermediaries have leveraged increases in high-profile player transfers, domestic franchise valuations, investment in foreign teams, development of player academies, overall youth and adult participation, and expanded media rights agreements to simultaneously economize Chinese football culture and culturalize the logics of commercial sport and free market capitalism more generally. In so doing, we map the various “scapes” through which people, capital, images, technologies, and ideologies have been set aflow and thereby frame new imaginings of mass privatization, mediation, and consumerism for a national football consuming public.

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In this article, we use narrative economics to analyze the social conditions promoting the growth in private investment in esports—specifically in North American esports teams and franchises. Investment in the esport industry has outpaced revenue growth and esport teams do not have a proven cash flow model. To understand this disjuncture, we draw upon the narrative economic approaches developed by Robert Shiller and colleagues who have demonstrated how the public narrative holds the potential to influence economic behavior—and whereby following a popular story might lead to irrational investment, labor, or consumption practices. We provide a quantitative analysis of published stories that shows the virality of esport narratives is consistent with epidemic models and that business investment narratives are spreading faster than general esport narratives. We then provide a mixed method analysis that demonstrates the central narrative of esport stories is one of growth, opportunity, and sport-esport synergies. We conclude with a discussion about the industrial and theoretical implications of studying viral stories as they relate to preconditioning economic behavior in the sports industry.