As perhaps the biggest and most popular sport in the world, it’s hard to imagine that football around the world could ever fall on hard times – but that is exactly what had been seen towards the start of 2020 as the pandemic spreading brought a halt to more or less all major sporting including football, and leading many fans to seek out alternative forms of entertainment – the difficulty at the time however was that many other major sporting events were going through a similar spell of lack of events during the pandemic.

It did provide an opportunity for some alternatives though, most notably in the online space as esports had only continued to thrive throughout the end of the year and throughout the start of 2021 too, and one of the titles that grew in popularity throughout this period of time had been within the world of FIFA esports. The reasons for the success had largely been in something familiar for fans looking to bridge the gap but not willing to explore the bigger games in esports that are a little more difficult for the casual viewer, and FIFA turned out the be the perfect game for many during this period of time. As something easy to follow, a little more familiar, and with a growing audience, it’s no surprise that some level of success had been found but given the big athletes and stars in football had also turned to the game and had shared content of their own.

(Image from insidethegames.biz)

The budding esports market has also allowed growth in other similar markets as betting sites focussed on esports and had been key during this period of time and had been a huge part in the success too and will continue to be so moving forward. That isn’t to say there aren’t challenges facing the growing FIFA esports scene, however, and it largely comes down to the way the games release. With a new title each year that does little to change on the previous years title, it means players have to fork out just to compete with each new game, and with the prominence of things like player packs in the new titles it means that with each new release the money spent to acquire a strong team is lost and needs to be redone, it is certainly something keeping many players away from being committed for each big release.

Whilst it may never reach the heights of some of the other big titles in the esports space, FIFA is at least getting a lot of support from players and the officials, and there may be opportunities for it to at least find a good foothold moving forward, particularly if there’s any potential risk of something similar happening in the future that could bring the game to a standstill once again.