Understanding complexity and dynamics in the career development of eSports athletes

Yue Meng-Lewis, Donna Wong, Yupei Zhao and Gavin Lewis

Sport Management Review, 2022, vol. 25, issue 1, 106-133

Abstract: With the accelerated growth of the esports industry over the last few years, there has been a corresponding increase in the number of esports athletes. Yet there is limited research examining these athletes’ professional career journeys. This study provides a novel investigation into their career development process. This qualitative study uses a sample of 35 esports athletes from 16 professional esports clubs in China. Findings from semi-structured interviews confirmed our proposition that traditional career theories may be inadequate to capture the complex and dynamic nature of the newly emerged careers within esports. The authors propose that Chaos Theory in Careers (CTC) provides principles that may more effectively describe and explain the nature and main characteristics of esports careers, compared to the more conventional linear or stage-based sports career theories. This study makes a significant theoretical contribution through developing esports career theory which is applicable to a contemporary setting and has practical implications to practitioners for esports talent identification, recruitment and development.An analysis of the retention of sponsors of six North American sport leagues (MLB, MLS, NASCAR, NBA, NFL, and NHL).Results indicate that NASCAR and NFL sponsors are retained at a significantly higher level.Undergirded by schema theory, clutter and sponsoring at a lower level reduces the probability that sponsors are retained.Tech sponsors are more likely to exit, while automotive and credit card sponsors are more likely to be retained.Results improve understanding of sponsor retention, assisting sponsees in targeting sponsors that engage in longer-term relationships.

Date: 2022
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1016/j.smr.2020.08.003 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:rsmrxx:v:25:y:2022:i:1:p:106-133

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/rsmr20

DOI: 10.1016/j.smr.2020.08.003

Access Statistics for this article

Sport Management Review is currently edited by Sheranne Fairley

More articles in Sport Management Review from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().