In the virtual world too, the season has been difficult for the FCGB. By finishing 9th the team did not achieve the desired objective of qualifying for the play offs of the eligue 1 championship organized by the LFP. eSport is developing more and more and it is even a flourishing market, explains Reynald Brion from Bordeaux, doctor in management sciences and eSport specialist.
It is a market that is doing very well, which is growing from year to year which just in competition weighs almost 1 billion dollars in 2021 and which has experienced growth of 8% per year since 2017 except obviously during the Covid period and especially during the cancellation of physical events, because eSport is online practice but also a lot of physical events – Reynald Brion
15,000 people at Bercy for an eSport competition.
Early June, 15,000 people gathered at Paris Bercy for the Trackmania Cup, car racing eSport competition! At the Girondins de Bordeaux, two players are under contract, including Fantoxe alias Timothé Lemarié who is just 19 years old.
I started by chance in tournament on FIFA 17, I was fourteen years old. And then one thing leading to another, I started to compete, and I was spotted. Afterwards I continued, I continued, I persevered and finally, I signed my first professional contract with the Girondins de Bordeaux. My family was super happy because I had been waiting for this for a long time. Three years that I was competing without having a professional contract, it was difficult. Parents, they don’t know eSport, they were surprised and happy – Fantoxe
PSG in Taiwan, OL in China, each with their own strategy
Like the Girondins de Bordeaux, many football clubs are investing in esports. Just look at the clubs present in eligue 1 of the LFP to be convinced: Monaco, Nantes, Strasbourg, Lorient… Confirmation of this strategy with Reynald Brion.
There are a lot of clubs that do that and the first were not in France. The first, historically, were in Germany and Turkey, with the Schalke club in particular, which when they were relegated, the first thing they sold was their place in a competition, League of Legends, which brought them almost 30 million euros, it was worth more than any of their players. So they first sold that and then they downsized. In France, we have clubs that have a traditional scheme with representatives on the virtual versions of the games, but also clubs that use it to simply spread a little more abroad. For example, Paris has a team in Taiwan, Olympique Lyonnais is creating partnerships in China. So it’s really used for various purposes.
In Bordeaux, the EGS has understood this movement well by creating the first eSport study in Europe. Besides, if you, or your children, imagine that the eSports professional spends his days with controllers in hand, goes to bed at 6:00 a.m. to get up at 2:00 p.m. and see neither the sun nor his friends, well the days of Fantoxe alias Timothé Lemarié at the EGS in Bordeaux don’t look like that at all.
No it’s not that at all. We are lucky to have real supervision at the EGS: in the morning, we have physical sport, we have cognitive training, nutritionists. On average, we spend 2 hours a day controller in hand – Fantoxe
To know more, meet on Wednesday June 15 at 2:00 p.m. to share a FIFA initiation in the presence of Fantoxe and Modric the two pro players of the FCGB who will be in the premises of the EGS, located at 208 avenue de la Marne in Mérignac.