![]() But the prevalence of the divide should give any fan of esports pause. This divide isn’t sacrosanct - clearly there are black and Latino players who have found their home in PC-based esports and white and Asian players who prefer joysticks to mouse clicks. ![]() As esports matures, one thing has become crystal clear: The PC/console divide has inadvertently become a racial divide, with white and Asian players featured most heavily on the PC side and African-American and Latino players on the other. ![]() But for console games such as Call of Duty, Super Smash Bros., Halo and Street Fighter, the communities grew but the same funding and opportunities didn’t materialize. Over time, spectators gathered, communities grew and funding started to flow. PC games, such as Dota, League of Legends, StarCraft and Counter-Strike, grew into their own ecosystems. The answer may lie in the foundations of esports - the actual video games many of us played growing up. There are high-profile players of color, such as Zaqueri “Aphromoo” Black and Dominique “SonicFox” McLean, but why are there so few other black players making it to the top of the various leagues? African-American representation on the major teams and in the highest-profile events is abysmal. Boasting a digital-first, broadly global audience, the esports marketplace raked in $696 million in 2017, with projected revenues to exceed $1 billion by 2020.īut within the esports juggernaut, there is a pronounced and growing racial gap in the player pools. Now esports is quickly rising to become the next iteration of big-stakes competitive play. The professionalization of sports changed the math for millions of young African-Americans, both male and female, providing careers, scholarships and a pathway to fame and further fortune.
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