Esport: Defusing Governance

Abstract

The purpose of this thesis is to explore how esport is governed and to investigate whether governance is an important factor in esports at the professional level. To do this, the methodology developed by Geeraert and co-authors (2014) and AGGIS are combined to create a checklist of governance indicators for esport. Focusing on the relationship between game publishers, event organisers, and esport organisations, a sample of thirteen esports and eleven event organisers are investigated and eight interviews are conducted to obtain industry knowledge directly. Main findings are that esport is governed either by the game publisher, event organiser, or a combination of both, and that currently governance have a limited impact on esport. The potential limitations of this thesis are the lack of diversity across interviewees and lack of game publisher willingness to participate