Abstract
While million-dollar prize-pools and mega-events dominate esports news, the somewhat elusive entities of national esports associations continue to develop as a critical underbelly. Associations prop up player mobility across all scales of modernisation and play an integral advocacy role for regional esports, providing situated responses to esports governance in society. However, national associations provide sector representation that is often polemic and unwelcome by grassroots, commercial and even state-level representatives. With the continued growth in everyday esports participation and calls for better regulatory frameworks, this article explores the emerging forms and challenges within esports associationalism under the four modes of public, industry, substitute, and early adopter associations. Through qualitative, mixed methods research, these modes are outlined as distinct associational forms with local mobilities, stakeholder pressures and infrastructural challenges involved for associational development and locally tailored esports governance.
Keywords
Introduction
In 2008, I attended the fifth International eSports Conference in Cologne, Germany. Various commercial, nonprofit and academic participants were involved, deliberating on the top issues of the time such as economic conditions for esports as a business, with one prominent industry speaker stating, ‘Venture capitalists don’t really match with investing in eSports’, to embodied reflections on the socio-material features involved in a high-performance esports region. This event was where I first encountered esports associations. Not just one, but seven representatives from Western Europe and KeSPA (Korean Esports Association). Throughout the conference, their conversations centred on governance; talk included public acceptance, politics and ‘motivating the government’, followed by organizational formats and standardization, developing transnational associational networks, and prioritizing esports labour as ‘a free time but full-time unpaid job on the side’. While esports has experienced a decade of phenomenal growth and institutional expansion since 2008, corporate and regional governance has trailed behind. Here, the somewhat elusive entities of national esports associations come into play as emerging bodies assigned to sustainable esports governance in society. As a first step examination of transformations in national esports governance, this article explores the emerging forms and challenges surrounding esports associations under development outside of ministerial backed sport support, concentrating on the complicated stakeholder relationships involved in their emerging structures.
The French esports association provides us with a practical definition of esports, as ‘… collaborative practices allowing players to face opponents via an electronic medium, particularly video gaming, independent of the type of game or digital platform used (computer, console, or tablet)’ (France Esports, 2019). But esports are also networked game cultures, digitally and socially, technologically (national broadband cables), and culturally, with volunteerism a mainstay of organizing practice. Under this complexity, we find esports associations primarily functioning as local representative offices. Organizations regularly positioned as nonprofit, third sector and often non-governmental, neither fully private nor public sectors where ‘revenue is not an end product’ (Vamplew, 2016, p. 465). Following Eichberg, third sector associations might be considered a foundation of civil society, places of self-organization and voluntary action where we meet other perspectives (2009). Addressing the upward mobility of such institutional forms, Susan Rose-Ackerman perfectly captures the state of esports associations ascendency in political terms, stating ‘nonprofit institutions exist because of market failures in the private sector and voids left by government agencies in the public one’ (1996, p. 705). Uneasily, these emerging nonprofit institutions are also surrounded by fast-paced digital cultures, stakeholders with techno-fetichism sympathies and commercial potential. As this study shows, the ‘voids left’ are often interpreted with impunity, presenting new challenges for the ‘health’ of any local esports ecosystem. These challenges range from working with early adopter esports association founders whose intent range from building a sustainable public service to primarily personal gain. Other encounters involve principles underpinning board membership appointments and corporate manoeuvring to own or preside over a potentially powerful and lucrative new platform. 1 Such personal and economic goals are in plain sight, as the president of a middle eastern esports association expressed to me, they just needed ‘a few million to start an esports platform’. Such statements signal the fine line running between strategic associational purposes while under development, and the desires accompanied by external needs of those managing these offices.
Not all associational histories suffer such appropriative behaviour. Yet, these recurring features are eerily familiar to traditional Western sport modernization in the public sphere. The trickle-on issues familiar from sport worlds should give us pause. From a nonprofit sport perspective, Numerato and Baglioni discuss this as the ‘dark side’ of associationalism, which include strains between internal, endemic stakeholders – such as budding usurpers of a national association or an existing club philosophy – and external impacts on the emergent organizational structure and strategy, including ‘misuse’ by ‘non-sport practitioners: politicians, corporations with an economic interest in sport, the media and sponsors’ (2011, p. 602). These stakeholder tensions are just some of the developmental challenges esports associations face, often stymying their growth and impact while players wait for sustainable solutions to prescient local issues. As more powerful media and media sport concerns enter this space and vie for authority, 2 the stakes surrounding national esports associationalism has never been higher as external, often global, interests and needs from esports, not for it, are on the rise.
This article works with the less visible actions and stakeholder relationships involved in esports at different stages of associational advancement. In crystallizing existing modes of esports associationalism, we can better understand and assess the current range of esports governance forms emerging and the stakes involved under distinct phases of organization. These perspectives on Western esports associationalism are characterized under four modes of public, industry, substitute and early adopter associations. A new era of esports associationalism and governance is finding form. Here, the tri-sectorial involvement of nonprofit, public and private sectors under esports modernization is problematized, addressing diverse adversarial encounters, growth mechanisms and group-based tensions affecting local governance.
Methods and Case Documentation
This study started in 2008 when I interviewed one of Danish esports’ most active volunteers working to establish a national association, alongside a prominent Danish esports organizer arranging face-to-face local area network events. These stakeholders had differing viewpoints on the role of local esports governance; one volunteer oriented towards universalist values of Olympism
3
and philosophy of ‘sport for all’ driven esports (shared common humanity),
4
the other with a commercial eye on the support and scalability of his existing tournament, laser-focused on individual success and economic viability. A rift was evident. They expressed contrasting values and orientations towards esports governance and had discriminating understandings of directorial expertise exhibited by mundane personality differences – they also simply did not like one another. These forms of everyday stakeholder strains, underpinned by a competitive attitude to others in the same field, impact the efficacy of governance at all levels of sport associationalism, esports included. Both young men were some of the early adopters of the esports association. In Danish, this kind of volunteer is called ildsjæl – a fiery soul committed to bringing a passion project to life (Taylor, 2012). A Danish national association member explains his journey, Before I got the role [of association coordinator], I had a whole year as a volunteer; I had some savings that I lived off, that was how I got started… There’s no money in esport. There’s no wage. And the work we were doing to launch it [association] demanded full-time work … I was able to support myself and invest that time. You could say that if those circumstances had not been there, I would not have been able to use time on it … Eventually, ildsjæl like us, we burn out unless we get fuel, [that] fuel could be political support.
Few grassroots associations had permanent offices back in 2008, and for those that did, subsidized rent was the most common form of ongoing ministerial support. Over a decade later, emerging grassroots esports associations look the same, many without a place of ordinary business, steady financial streams or state support. Interviewed in 2008, one member of the Netherlands esports association highlights these relational troubles, which continue to be heard in later years of esports development; he states Right now, we have an office which is government-funded [paid lease] and some small other funding to organize national championships, but this is on project basis, not on a continuing scheme ... We want government funds to stabilize our organization.
National esports associations subsist on volunteerism, though with expectations from ministerial and commercial sectors to embody organizational expertise – before state support – and to have scaling impact matching established corporate sport governance. A board member from the Hellenic Esport Association speaks to the limits of this idea from the perspective of early associativity in 2009, ‘… there are some guys that have dreams for esports here. Our association have a few very dedicated man [sic] to work hard for it’. This member regularly shifted volunteers from his other venture as a minor league tournament organizer into association work. Here, volunteerism is harnessed and shuffled about by core actors on a community scene and used to develop additional public pipelines for play.
From Western Europe to Oceania, the self-funded founder and long-term stakeholder are recurring characters in the early adopter phase of esports associationalism. 5 These are youthful folks, mostly young men, zealous about digital gaming as serious leisure and willing to invest their time, finances and status into an organization hoping that their favourite pastime would solidify as a career by making it as the peak national body. Such esports dreams were not unfounded; the success benchmarks were everywhere. After all, sporting associations can be big business.
Since that first interview held in a Copenhagen café, I have formally interviewed 13 esports association board members and associated volunteers between 2008 and 2020. During this time, I also talked informally with hundreds of primary and secondary stakeholders related to esports associations worldwide. These stakeholders included players (professional and pro/am), tournament organizers (TOs), sport ministry members, commercial sport operators, sponsors, esports experts, game developers, educators, parents and volunteers. In 2016, I became a board member of the Australian Esports Association (AESA), one of four esports associations engaging in modes of esports representation as a nonprofit in Australia. In addition, I have participated in numerous associational, industry-oriented esports conferences, summits and workshops. This work started in 2008 with The International eSports Conference. It concluded in 2019 with the Global Esports Summit (GEES), a tri-sectorial annual event hosted by the International Esports Federation (IESF) in South Korea. At these events, smaller esports association members spoke about their immediate mobility issues, such as supporting Tunisian players to attend otherwise unaffordable international tournaments. From a state-level perspective, bureaucrats in attendance had time to discuss their regional directions for esports infrastructure and tourism with field experts. This knowledge sharing activity revealed the asymmetrical state of international esports development, the lingering influence of South Korean esports, and a decentring of Western sport practices and control (Parry, 2006). It also unearthed a variety of stakeholders – including royal family legal representatives – involved in configuring esports across sectorial entities. The dialogues unfolding at these events exposed the unique and unquantifiable circumstances impinging on esports governance beyond audience statistics and earnings.
Where possible, the investigation takes a feminist approach to methods honouring experience, process and partialness, situating the study with the bodies and discussions working through the developmental processes of institutionalization and challenging aspects of (Western) sports’ status quo while shoring up inner practices of associationalism under esports. The participants and organizations whose practices, expertise and reflections inform this research are partially or fully anonymized under a duty of care for their standing and future employment.
Esports Associationalism and Stakeholders
As a political movement and construct, associationalism has historically been identified as ‘seek[ing] to expand the scope of democratic governance in civil society’ (Hirst, 2002, p. 409). Esports are steadily emerging as associational forms, ranging from social democratic to in-house industry governance, within what TL Taylor defined as the ‘third wave’ of esports. Coinciding with the growth of live streaming platforms in 2010, during this wave, ‘esports has become not just a sports product but a media entertainment outlet as well’ (Taylor, 2018, p. 4). Esports, media sport, politics and nonprofits go head-to-head under this wave, associations included. During this wave, organizational and ideological frameworks propping up esports in society are shaped by a sectorial trifecta of state, market and public under different stages of involvement and retreat (Eichberg, 2009).
Periodic research on the rise and the role of esports associations has appeared in the scholarship of Dal Young Jin (2010) and T. L. Taylor (2012), with attention to leading associations emerging from South Korea in the early 2000’s – namely, KeSPA and the IESF. 6 Both KeSPA and the IESF have been central hubs for esports associational discourse, structural associational development and strategic and constitutional intent. 7 Perhaps, most importantly, KeSPA and other early signatory countries under the IESF, such as Esports Denmark, signal a long-term commitment to esports as home-grown stakeholder organizations. This durational facet of associationalism has been repeatedly overlooked in public dialogue on esports associations’ value and member experience to the professional esports sector. 8 Where commercial entities transition in and out of local authority, offering short-term conservation of esports under international corporate objectives, 9 national associations and their representative members attempt to maintain tenure with local circulation and effect. However, this does not suggest that esports associations are free from precarious relations during structural advancement. Across all modes, esports associational development is far from effortless. In working through these challenges, stakeholder theory assists in making visible diverse stakeholder tensions as they materialize and shift in legitimacy.
In high-performance esports worlds, a suite of idealized primary participants persists: the professional player, the game developer or publisher, alongside commercial operations such as a representative of a major tournament organizer (e.g. ESL Gaming (formerly Electronic Sports League); Blast Premier); those exhibiting decipherable attributes of ‘legitimacy, power, and urgency’ as salient stakeholders (Mitchell, Agle, & Wood, 1997, p. 855). As Max Clarkson (1995) writes, primary stakeholders are people and organizations with ongoing involvement in a crucial sector for its survival. Clarkson’s simplified approach to stakeholder theory offers two positions as having either primary or secondary significance. Dichotomies such as this point to how esports associations might be positioned within a residual sector’s hierarchy. Secondary stakeholders, Clarkson writes, are those with influence but non-essential for the survival of an industry. This subordinate position is where national esports associations are frequently situated, or begin, as a unit of governance. When under the custodianship of mostly local volunteer members with various saliency thresholds as stakeholders – from local and youthful esports tournament organizers to national telco representatives – their fully-fledged ‘legitimacy’ – that is, a stakeholder’s valued relationship to the sector – is often diluted pending on a range of audience support and their fragmented needs. Local and transnational audiences can include government sporting agencies and state tourism branches, national tournament organizers, local esports communities and clubs, digital safety and integrity offices, and everyday players looking for representation (national or administrative), to name a few. In this wave of associational growth, we find messy and often contradictory stakeholder relationships evidenced internationally at all scales of development. 10
While a boundary between primary and secondary stakeholders offers less complexity surrounding personal attributes and in situ institutional relationships, it provides a productive lens over this early-evolutionary stage of esports associationalism. It also becomes a valuable tool to identify how different stakeholders are made to count, by whom, and to what effect in the local setting (Ferkins & Shilbury, 2015). During this phase of rising esports governance, regional stakeholder relationships and the struggle for associational influence signal the established and anticipated regulatory power over a broader scene and the significant stakes involved for those affected.
The following cases demonstrate how stakeholder dynamics across sectors and members significantly impact regional esports futures. Four modes of esports associationalism are identified, driven primarily by public, industry, substitute or early adopter orientations. Attention is placed on primary and secondary stakeholder relationships, local and multinational, within third-wave esports associations, and how the institutionalization of esports associations is valued in specific contexts. These cases act as a valuable entry point to consider distinct modes of esports associational governance, their regulatory relations and effects, providing comparative rubrics for future study of associational development in esports.
Public Mode: Culturally Guided Tri-Sectorial Governance
As a public mode of esports associationalism, Esport Denmark (ESD) offers a representative case involving strategic tri-sectorial contributions across commercial, nonprofit and state strata, a form recognizable from traditional Danish associational culture (Kaspersen & Ottesen, 2001). Even within a region supportive and familiar with civics-oriented conditions of associationalism (Parry, 2006), ESD’s work to get there has been tricky (tri-sectorial disunity and exclusionary power) and challenging to convey as a national priority. By 2019, ESD delivered a ministerially backed esports strategy. However, official ministerial recognition is unnecessary for this mode. 11 Instead, it is the arrangement of stakeholders (diverse board member appointments), strategic principles and identified responsibilities, which orient national esports governance and its public responsibility. As a civics-oriented governing body, ESD stakeholders are framed beyond the primary or secondary stakeholder binary and positioned as ‘any group or individual who can affect or is affected by the achievements of the organization’s objectives’ (Freeman, 2010, p. 46).
Alongside consumer-citizenship accountability in associationalism, the following formation challenges explore boardroom membership and affected stakeholders, including youth educators and women in esports, groups impacted by the current state of esports.
Formation Challenges
When I first spoke to the Danish Esports president in 2008, they talked of stakeholder fragmentation, personally invested and competitive ‘ildsjæl’, young men looking for an esports career, splintering the vision and development of a public response to esports. Their orientation to esports as a cultural practice and representatives has shifted significantly. By November 2019, ESD’s president was a high school teacher – a high legitimacy public representative with no other vested commercial interest in esports. The educator is an under-represented stakeholder across global esports associations, demarcating this developed phase for ESD and a board majority drawn from grassroots and public esports stakeholders such as education professionals and cultural representatives. Unlike most associational modes, commercial esports operators and adjacent business representatives support ESD rather than overpower it, which is not a formation challenge per se. Instead, it signals a decade of progress, bolstered by grassroots representatives, volunteerism and an underpinning approach to get there.
Following Mitchell et al. (1997), ESD is representative of the publicly valued ‘definitive stakeholders’ – those with high salience of power, legitimacy and urgency, which can articulate time-sensitive matters and claims critical to a stakeholder – which strategically addresses youth and esports education. The associational composition prioritizes those affected by esports, including parents, young people and educators. It is distinct from the corporatized legitimacy-power dualism found in other esports’ modes and the utilization of esports to embed the state in new markets. However, even with the public mode orientation addressing affected stakeholders, the urgency of strategic inclusivity measures remains crucial. Women have limited, primarily advisory roles, on the board, which translates as limited remit on esports ‘decision-making and politics’ – a key objective in the European Commission 2020 gender equality strategy. As a Southeast Asian board member noted, ‘gender mainstreaming is not yet compulsory but more like promotion for sport policies … while we have a female board member, at the [2019 international esports] summit, you could see, this is rare’. ESD has harboured gender exclusivity perspectives in previous boardrooms, adamantly expressed here by a former board member: I think it’s ok that this [esports] is more of a man’s world than a girl’s world because men have had this for many, many years … we have to watch out that we don’t take too much away from the men. I think the problem is men don’t accept losing to a girl.
By 2020, as a 12-year-old association, ESD maintains negligible representation for women, limiting ‘a gender perspective in all policy areas, at all levels and at all stages of policymaking’ in local esports (European Commission, 2020). At all levels of esports – public, corporate and ministerial – women remain outside of decision-making roles.
While ESD exemplifies a civic-oriented approach to esports associationalism, the spectre of industrial systems hovers over it. Larry Wenner, Bellamy, and Walker (2014) problematizes this menace from a media sport perspective as an uncomfortable merger of consumer and citizen rights, compromised locally by corporate ownership models. Executive digital game ownership, tied to rapid technological development, merge two uniquely challenging and regularly identified themes for all scales of associational initiatives – often halting governmental discussion altogether by the complexity it may bring, or the line overstepped into the private sector. The Danish national esports strategy publicly acknowledges that ‘esports are … difficult to support in traditional associational structures’ (Ministry of Culture Denmark, 2019). Such ‘difficulties’ are present across all modes of esports associationalism. They are also carelessly echoed in other public forums interested in esports governance. These include academic scholarship (Prax, 2019), esports journalism (Ashton, 2019) and third-party esports industries as one esports team PR executive illustrated in 2017, ‘Yeah, IP (intellectual property) in esports is a clusterfuck’. Despite having no ongoing role or ongoings with esports, federal representatives also mirrored the struggles involved with governing esports. As a sport committee representative acknowledged, ‘we’re not looking to be a ‘nanny’ for the [commercial] sector’. From the position of a developed esports association and its workable regulatory responsibility, the on-the-ground pressures of esports’ social and local place tied to global systems are revealed. These everyday situations are recognizable for many national esports associations as they develop their legitimacy and capacity as public-oriented organizations with a balanced consideration of affected esports public social requirements over that as consumer-citizens.
Feature Conditions
Before state recognition and a mandated strategic orientation, ESD – alongside most national associations – were publicly framed as a secondary stakeholder at best by the corporate sector. That positioning exists despite ESD’s consistency as a primary stakeholder for schools, families and government officials throughout rapid third-wave developments in esports. For example, in a 2018 conversation with the media manager of a professional Danish esports team, they maintained: In its essence, the national association has always been seen as a sort of pariah, trying to extract value, whether monetary or in terms of relative, political power and influence, from esports … more so than adding value by forwarding the community’s agenda.
This is a paradigmatic esports industry executive sentiment, where association members are positioned as ‘outsiders’ devoid of value-adding activity for ‘the community’. In this evaluation of associational labour and value, the esports professional provides us with a standpoint on who is legitimized to have authority within the capitalist construct of esports. The public devaluation of associational work and member labour may not be universal. Still, it is widespread in competitive gaming communities and corporate spheres for C-suite esports executives to take an adverse position towards local associational actors and actions (See Lake, 2020). Piqued commercial stakeholder commentary does not acknowledge the rise of national associations as partly tied to transnational corporations’ circumvention of local stewardship and situated accountability. When commercial providers fall short, this results in localized pleas for quality, structured, ongoing, equitable and responsible participation in esports. In summary, inaction on local issues of cultural citizenship in leisure makes the argument for national associations’ necessary presence.
Likewise, commercial stakeholders protecting their norms are not the only institution cautious of esports associationalism. Internal ministerial tensions across departments reveal further layers of stakeholder control. Siloed ministries look to ‘control the agenda’ of their sector, decelerating associational work towards public-backed esports (Green, 2012, p. 41). A former ESD board member recounts these meetings: My fight in the ministries for years have been with the established sports federations, telling them … you need to help us do this the right way, but because they are afraid of losing so much money if they integrate us … they are not willing to do it. This is a generational problem here … they do not understand gaming and youth.
The developmental dynamics of esports associationalism entangles stakeholders from institutional and emergent organizations, political, volunteer and corporate. The call for a consistent and collaborative ‘public esports’ association, with a state-backed resolution, responds to long-term corporate and political inaction on public issues interconnected with esports cultures. 12 And, while influential commercial stakeholders remain central to this phase of public esports governance, so too is an orientation towards sustainable local support and balanced stakeholder salience for the association (power and legitimacy across many representative esports stakeholders) – affecting everyday board decisions and strategic direction. In this public mode, the association is reconfigured as a non-precarious body, untied from any individual, company or residual rivalries with reduced antagonism across sectors for the work and value of an esports association.
Industry Mode: Economically Driven Tri-Sectorial Governance
Distinct from the public mode, another format of esports associationalism featuring governmental support is the industry-oriented mode, an economically centred political enterprise. In 2019–2020, France Esports presented a transparent version of this model of esports governance through their public documents. With support from the Ministries of Economy, Industry and Digital Affairs to launch ‘Fédération France-Esport’, France Esports (2019) claimed to be … the first association of its kind in the world to represent the overall ecosystem of digital sports. Players, clubs, promoters, service-sector companies, developers, publishers … all are seated at the table with the same purpose of securing the common good of the esports ecosystem.
While this phase of associationalism fosters grassroots pipelines interwoven with socio-structural transformation, 13 a corporate majority board refines the national approach under an industrial-economic remit. It is here we can address what this means for formation challenges.
Formation Challenges
France Esports’ commercially riveted organization sees the balance of power sitting with local employees in media, digital games and esports with global corporate affiliation. Such corporate connections include SELL (France’s game developer and publisher association), ESL, Blizzard, Ubisoft and Facebook – high legitimacy, multinational institutions, several with poor institutional history surrounding integrity and anti-discrimination measures (Lorenz & Browning, 2020; Audureau, 2015). This model of associationalism highlights the capitalist logic of esports in society positioned primarily as an industry over a cultural form while servicing mainly youthful participants. At the same time, affected representational stakeholders – including grassroots event-makers, other public institutions and groups – are largely absent from board representation at this critical growth stage. Ruth Lister frames such forms of strategic state-level advanced liberalism as when we see the ‘integration of social and economic policy, but with the former still the ‘handmaiden’ of the latter’ (2004, 160).
France Esports is still in early stage development under this phase of associationalism. Yet, it is a paradigmatic case evidencing how social aims can remain positioned as subordinate issues where best intentions are not (yet) met with structural reform, and experts reframed as secondary stakeholders to political economic and corporate priorities – despite organizational claims ‘to represent the overall ecosystem of digital sports’.
Feature Conditions
When corporate representatives embody a majority on public-facing sport and esports associational boards, a sociologist would stop to consider the qualitative effects recruitment has on policymaking positions and organizational dynamics. As conversations with esports association members over the last decade have made clear, esports governance at all levels has an informal ‘back channel’. This is an unceremonious invite-only space where behind the scenes debates and formalization begins before the establishment of these national – and increasingly regional – associations or official meetings (Ferkins & Shilbury 2015). Which stakeholders participate in the pre-formation of an association places a value on those identified stakeholders by self-legitimizing – institutionally or socially connected – actors in esports. For example, French grassroots esports and community organizers were worried about ‘…not being part of the process … I am following this [government talks on esports and the digital republic bill] from afar because the SELL only included private organizations to the discussion’ (Auxent, 2015).
Such reports can give us pause to consider how local grassroots esports initiatives and advocacy work are rendered invisible and intangible for national-corporate schemes during associational formalization. Such developmental manoeuvres are a harbinger for the struggles ahead for esports associations in regions with multinational corporate presence and established associations representing their interests. 14 When the state moves in, corporate bodies are the visible, legitimized and primary stakeholders that are made to matter, local governance and integrity histories notwithstanding. The shadowy principles behind stakeholder recruitment, and who or what expertise is valued, remains a crucial aspect of associational development impacting current and future esports scenes. Zooming out to more public forces, we can see how politics and sport historically play a role in the state of associationalism writ large, specifically under the industry mode.
Unpacking political forces on esports, Nico Besombes, sociologist and vice president of France Esport, co-writes that ‘The public recognition of esports in France [is] seen as the desire to consider esports more as an industry rather than a sport’ (Vansyngel, Velpry, & Besombes, 2018, p. 128). This suggests a shift in the associational focus from the regulation of playing publics to revenues, presenting a case for emerging associations looking for specific support systems. They continue, ‘ … certain players and associative actors seem to have been disavowed by the [French] Ministry of Sports … institutional legitimation by the traditional sports sphere seems blocked in favour of the development of economic activities’ (p. 129). Such sentiments are well documented in media sport scholarship. Here, Toby Miller captures a similar situation during the third-wave of esports, noting that ‘political citizenship’s role in sports and media policy has been overdetermined by economic citizenship in its latest form’, where corporate representatives lightly invoke cultural responsiveness in their strategies. Still, the primary drive is for internal economic interests to ‘profit unfettered by regulation’ (2013, p. 35).
In various state and executive-level meetings I have participated in, corporate sport organizers have diminished esports associational work. The concerns have surrounded youth and generic screen time use, and issues such as low association membership numbers, a sticking point on esports associational ‘relevance’. This last point illustrates a lack of sensitivity to distinctions in esports participation structures, which are played and registered through existing for-profit leagues, compared to traditional sport and how members are accumulated and counted. During the third-wave of esports, participants asked a constant question: ‘are esports sport?’ But as we read here, the historic rise of esports associations tells us that institutionalized sport has been heavily involved in defining esports worlds, what they can and cannot be.
15
It is a familiar encounter across these modes. Offering another perspective on the sports rebuff, the Netherlands esports association president discusses a moment from their early-stage talks with the sport ministry, … [here] it is the other sports associations that decide whether you will become a member [as a recognized sports association]. And that’s a little problem! If they see money coming to us, they don’t see money going to them. It’s all about the money.
As esports associations move in to advocate for esports governance to respective governments, the core interest and concern received is frequently guided by economics. But esports, much like sport, serve playing publics. They do not exist without them. Government intercessions into esports associationalism with intentions to prop up trade and industry may inadvertently undermine public focused associativity developed ‘bottom up’ with community voice and community-centric needs displaced for consumer-corporate ones. Moreover, playing politics with esports has real-world effects on the youthful actors as the primary inhabitants of these worlds for recreation, community and everyday play that moves alongside and into sport worlds. France Esports exemplifies associationalism driven by industrial strategy while remaining highly considerate of those everyday communities, as evidenced by its small-scale social initiatives. However, as Lister advises, there are stakes involved when the social is the ‘handmaiden’ of economic policy (2004).
Substitute Mode: Interceding Corporatized Associations
One recurring stakeholder dynamic in esports associationalism centres on which organization is deemed the ‘best fit’ to hold the title of peak body. This conflict involves a substitute mode of esports association, identified as a phase where associations contest, rather than collaborate, with an existing organization. From a tri-sectorial perspective, these pop-up associations can work to ‘flood the market’, with knock-on disadvantageous political effect, destabilizing the maturation of esports locally. Simultaneously, substitute associations are catalysts for change and are often run by corporate, often multinational, board representatives. While they can kindle acrimonious stakeholder tensions, their presence likewise sharpens or initiates strategic planning and action.
Formation Challenges
Regulative power, urgency and legitimacy are driving features of this mode. The perspective of a substitute-mode association CEO in Oceania demonstrates this well, as they look to position themselves as the national esports representative, despite an existing association’s presence in the region. They state, … There’s a number of new stakeholders coming into the industry, and the purpose of the [association] is to create a little bit more structure around the various groups … set a basic level of standards for us to follow, and for us to tackle some key issues. So, player visas for example … we [ESL, their employer] couldn’t get [EU players] in the country in time [for an ESL tournament]. Whereas if esports were more formally recognized … these are some of the things we need to tackle as an industry (Callanan, 2018).
Player mobility is an urgent matter to consolidate major events locally. However, local and international representatives have discussed such issues with government bodies for over a decade with varied social and structural outcomes, from knowing the right contact to process forms to establishing esports-athlete visas. In this message, the substitute association shows their urgency and legitimacy to take on the ‘key issues’ where other bodies have not succeeded before them. In addition, they leverage different angles of approach – in this case, with no intention for recognition as a sport, as opposed to associations aligned to the IESF – 16 and alternative industry connections.
This form of substitute-associationalism works to decelerate effective esports governance in a region. Simultaneously, its presence forces introspection, publicly addressing the capacity of any existing associational stewardship. As these relationships between associational forms start to show, a fuller picture of substitute-mode associational actions is required. It needs to consider an existing association’s values and efficacy, a government’s stance towards esports associationalism and where it resides (e.g., with sport, economy, or outside of support), and the grounds for creating a new association over alignment with existing forms.
17
Addressing this last issue, a substitute-mode association president speaks candidly, stating there are, … legacy problems from being a grassroots kind of movement, so professionalism … making sure there’s a fair set of standard and practices … and who is the right person or the right body to make these moves … making an approach towards government … it is serious business, and its only predicted to get bigger in terms of revenue, size, and scale, and if we don’t get things right in the early days, we’ll be in trouble in the future (Callanan, 2018).
This quote offers us a spirited corporate governance position behind the development of a substitute association, suggesting there are the right people, primarily corporate stakeholders, and a right body for the job. Miller has named this form of corporate interest in the organization of public sport the ‘AstroTurf’ organization, a faux grassroots group that in its most developed form makes [a] corporation resemble governing agencies operating with the public good in mind, even as their actions heighten North-South imbalances, promote their own wares, commodify sports, distract attention from corporate malfeasance in terms of the environment and labour, and stress International/imperial sports over local ones (2013, p. 34).
As embedded corporates, substitute mode board members are regularly rich in social networks across political and economic sectors. That is, evidencing significant bonding capital (Putnam, 2000), horizontal social ties enabling coordinated action across diverse media industries, tournament organizers, media sport and most notably already ‘connected’ government sectors and representatives therein. Substantial bonding capital in substitute associational members represents another version of homophily found in the following early adopter phase of associationalism. However, within substitute associations, board member emphasis is focused on experienced (older) C-suite representatives and vertical connections between political and economic power holders. As with the industry-mode of associationalism, spheres of commercial and consumer-citizenship influence are a driver of board membership. Many ongoing public issues are mislaid in the race to make esports global locally.
Feature Conditions
A recurring theme in esports associational membership is emerging, the consistent presence of select multinational companies. Tencent (founding partner of the Global Esports Federation – an international version of the substitute association mode – launched in 2020) and ESL are prime examples. ESL has pivoted to support regional associations with employee involvement across numerous volunteer-based boards as a TO with offices in Europe, Asia, Oceania and North America. Speaking to ESL’s associational involvement, co-founder Ralf Reichert publicly stated, ‘Its [sic] less about pro and more about grassroots and the club from the countryside. And as its a political thing we all need to unite’ (2020). Associational volunteers can be traced back to ESL’s local shoutcasters and university club organizers, whose roles in grassroots esports is urgent and necessary for local associations. However, associational representation increasingly comes from the C-suite executive branch of a regional office. Such manoeuvring indicates an additional adversarial encounter emerging between associational stakeholders, addressed here by a long-term Eastern European esports board member: ‘They’re [publishers] using and abusing the players. Making huge profits from them, including ESL and tournament organizers, on the back of players, but they’re not giving anything back’ (Fatio, 2019). Of course, this heated statement is contingent on what giving back involves locally – from player welfare and local industry support to sector advocacy. But by 2020, nations with a local ESL office were more likely than not to have a representative on an established (industry-mode) or substitute Western-based esports association board. Whether multinational companies are looking to extend grassroots support, solidify new audiences for their core product or position themselves in a new East (Tencent) versus West (ESL) struggle for platform power and emerging transnational business networks, 18 the potential of the esports association as a novel platform is not lost entirely by the corporate sector.
As a form, this version of substitute-mode association shows signs of acquisitive and conservative movement by corporations looking to seize a piece of platform power in esports. This mode exposes some of the publicly magnifying but structurally weakening effects commercially interested manoeuvres have on esports locally.
Productive local level associationalism is frequently put into deadlock by differentiated stakeholder and institutional values within this phase of associational development. In addition, residual effects of associational members who maintain ‘defensive communities’ and personal, longstanding rivalries are heavily in play (Horch, 1998). Though defensive communities and motivations underpinned by executive and regulative power are not only found in interceding substitute associations, these attributes also arise in the most common form of associationalism, the early adopter mode.
Early Adopter: Enthusiast ‘ildsjæl’ Associations
This early adopter mode of associationalism is ildsjæl (a personal passion) initiated, an avid first mover of formalized esports associationalism in a region, but with growth years absent of ongoing multinational corporate support, established influence or governmental funding. Esport Denmark (between 2007 and 2010), Israel Esports (established in 2010–) and the AESA (between 2013 and 2016) are representative of this phase of development (Lin & Zhao, 2021).
Esports entrepreneurship, and the desire to foster a career in competitive gaming, is a regular feature of founder–volunteers within this mode, which has positive and negative effects. Speaking from a position of collective welfare and Danish associationalism (Kaspersen & Ottesen, 2001), a 2008 Danish esports representative stated, I totally love it [associational work], but when other [international associations] form, then you have people to support you through the hard times, share experiences … on an even bigger level. When you have clubs, people, ildsjæl in different countries, and [they say] … can we borrow your plans, can you teach us about this thing, that totally boosts you because then you are someone, not like someone important, but whatever you do it has a value and it means something. We’re all in this game because we like the competition, and we have some responsibilities … what we are trying to do [is] raise the players.
While raising the players is a recurring theme throughout associationalism writ large, 19 the early adopter phase, with board representatives growing out of esports scenes, is particularly riveted to such player welfare issues. However, they have limited resources to address them sufficiently.
Formation Challenges
During this formative stage of development, associations are routinely organized by a core team of under six active members with peer-nominated board members linked through existing connections. Such informal and internal recruitment methods have crystallized the phenomena of all-male esports boards at the early adopter stage of associational development as evidenced in both European and Oceania-based interviews. Within this mode, board membership diversity emerges as policy over time. 20 However, women’s representation within esports cultures more broadly remains a socio-structural issue. In the formative stages of the early adopter association, we comprehend how women’s participation is limited, including when token representation occurs and is touted, such as through advisory board roles or stand-alone initiatives, such as women in esports panels at national summits. In other words, women are persistently externalized and positioned only as genderized voices with a limited ongoing remit for everyday policymaking.
While self-proclaiming to be esports endemics and ‘right for the role’, interviews with early adopter board members revealed limited governance or career experience more broadly. Early adopters, as self-selected representatives, also embody irregular linking social capital, with little vertical connections to people and institutions of differing social positions and expertise (Woolcock, 2001). As Shilbury, Ferkins, and Smythe. (2013) address, this form of ‘insider culture’ can make for stale governance. Scene tensions consistently develop from this very dynamic. Youthful board members from esports worlds, with entrepreneurial intentions and limited experience, some harbouring bitter relationships across esports communities, affect the trustworthiness and potential for various kinds of sectorial associational exchange, warranted or not. A Danish esports representative from 2016 framed this persistent individualism to me as follows, The problem is, the sport is started up by many young, enthusiastic people that don’t think democracy, that don’t think rules and regulations, but are just me, me, me. The problem with that is the politicians who should grant the money for a nonprofit federation looks at them and says no, no, no.
An experienced media consultant for a cable broadcaster entering esports captured this stance even more bluntly, candidly noting in conversation, ‘they’re boys dressed up in suits’. Hesitations surrounding the value and intent of esports associations here are entrenched with additional barriers for esports development as a local representative body. This is evidenced in competitive interpersonal dynamics on a given scene, suspicion from members of adjacent but professionalized institutions and hesitations regarding an association’s validity as a primary stakeholder of an emerging sector. These residual effects are difficult to shake for early adopter associations. Such heavily individualized challenges with early adopter associationalism are a clear reminder of the stagnating impact particular board dynamics can have on the national health of esports.
Feature Conditions
When exploring the corporate sector attitude towards early adopter associations, there is clear evidence of scepticism for such self-constructed organizations, amplified by the symbolic maturity and partially ‘legitimized’ social connectivity of those involved. This is equally a reflection of the ambitions of ildsjæle in esports associations and local commercial esports stakeholders who disavow associational value – claiming associations are an extractive mechanism wielded by individuals, rather than exchanging or building value for the broader sector and public. In 2019, an early adopter association member voiced a sophisticated understanding of the role of a national association to me with an orientation to a range of current and affected stakeholders, saying: There should be a body that has enough support and industry cooperation that if there was an inappropriate situation within the industry, then there was an independent place to go and reach out for action and equally so people get supported and acknowledged for their local, tangible positive role in the industry.
While the intent is egalitarian, the structure that this member calls for is mostly absent from their early adopter association, with limited sustainable resources to address it. Despite significant labour investment and best intentions, sector associates persistently frame early adopter associations as low resource entities, economically and socially. The plights of early adopter esports associations highlight the critical role social capital embodies for esports governance, board member relationships and career expertise can lubricate or corrode the cogs mobilizing associational power and effects in the public sphere.
Conclusion
Despite associativity defining an essential phase of modernity in sport, ‘there is no general history devoted to documenting the process by which these organizations first came into being’ (Szymanski, 2006). Following, this article attempted to congeal mixed modes of qualitative study with archival documentation to analyse critical entanglements, causes and consequences transforming the course of Western society based esports associational development and the ongoing institutionalization of esports outside of recognized national sport frameworks and support structures.
Esports associations are an increasingly persistent third sector unit internationally. However, their forms and growth reveal how these entities are also deeply home-grown, rooted into society through local struggles and relationships affecting the role, work and values associated with national esports associationalism. The produced Western modes of public, industry, substitute and early adopter esports associationalism discussed here have explored characteristics and key formation challenges as associations formalize as organized digital games-centric cultural institutions across public, state and commercial stakeholders.
The rise of esports associations in this fieldwork confirms the nation-state reorganization of sport and leisure, frequently towards market principles, alongside dominant stakeholder struggles. Growing pains in associational development are many. They involve working with residual sport power holders, divergent goals for local esports and the destabilizing effects of defensive communities, which contribute to the cost of local associational development and a sustainable, local social welfare net for esports members. One group under-represented in this phase of esports modernization is women in esports, particularly across leadership and representation as primary stakeholders. With this last structural piece in mind, esports associations in 2020 remain a nascent form of associationalism, with limited obligation or accountability demonstrated for equitable board leadership and performative statements over strategic goals and responsibility to develop national esports as an inclusive platform from the inside out. Broader societal issues surround women’s sport and recreational experiences. Esports – bridging media, digital games, game cultures and sporting industries – complicate this effect, and deepen it along esports bodies as multiple forms of marginalization stack up along gender, sexual expression, ethnicity, racialized identity, anonymity and body ability (Gray, 2020). Finally, suppose esports move under a new wave, under broader international recognition as a sport and, following, identification as a valued activity nurturing education and cultural citizenship. In that case, the substitute-mode president’s view becomes portentous for esports associationalism moving forward, ‘[I]f we don’t get things right … we’ll be in trouble in the future’ (Callanan, 2018).
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared the following potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: Emma Witkowski is a board member of the Australia Esports Association and receives no financial benefit from this non-executive role.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Notes
Author Biography
Emma Witkowski is a phenomenologically informed sociologist and senior lecturer with the game design programme at RMIT University, Australia. As a qualitative scholar, her research focuses on networked game cultures, particularly high-performance practices, esports modernisation and young people’s relationships with their organised digital leisure activities. Emma has published widely on esports careers, gender and games, and the institutionalisation of esports. In addition, she has been an academic consultant across government departments and for professional esports and sports organisations. She sits on the board of the Australian Esports Association and the women’s advisory board with the New Zealand Esports Association.