Hi guys:

I'm at a top 5 US uni studying mathematical economic analysis and statistics and have proficiency in back-end programming and structuring data. I'm currently choosing a topic for a statistics thesis and I would like to explore the business of esports.

My goal with this post is to get a discussion going about curiosities in the industry. What questions do you have about the industry? What do you find yourself wondering as a spectator?

As I dive into a topic, I will use this thread to keep the progress of my research public and also to receive feedback along the way.

Cheers!

id like to see the ratio of people who play video games:people who play for a living
and compare that to the ratio of people who play sports: people who play for a living

You should really talk to 2GD.

http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/2GD

redbull just posted an article about this on facebook lol.

1) What university?
2) Income of an average caster/player/how much does a player make streaming a month/can semi-pros actually feed themselves on what they make?
3) Time distribution for Koreans vs American vs Europeans--are they playing more in-house games? Are they laddering as much? What are they doing differently with regards to time allocation?
4) Who is the most successful SC2 player of all time by average finishing position in tournaments? Who has the highest rate of taking home the gold? Who has the best average finishing place in the GSL?
5) Correlation between APM and win rate among pros?
6) Correlation between races, win rate, and game duration (or number of bases and win rate)?
7) Which pro player 1 base all ins the highest percentage of the time in non-mirror matches?
8) Which race has the best average placement in tournaments? Has this changed from WoL to HotS?

I recently read an Bachelor Theses about eSports.

Was unnecessary boring shit. I can try to find it again

I think the largest issue with e-sports is that games can only last small period of time, usually anywhere from 3-10 years before people and fans lose interest and they have to move on to a more updated game.

Also I think that it will never be appealing to people who do not know much about the game, unlike pro sports where you can still go to a live game knowing nothing about the event and enjoy yourself.

This is my theory on why esports will never be comparable or as large as real sports.

who is the literal best player and why is it keiko?

id rather not

That would be great if you could! I'm very interested to see what kind of research other people are conducting.