Watching Sports While Sports are Off

The coronavirus lockdown is proving to be the stuff of nightmares for sports fans worldwide. Even more so those Liverpool supporters out there who were so close to seeing their team lift the Premier League trophy for the first time in 30 years, or Super League’s Toronto Wolfpack fanbase itching to watch the first transatlantic professional sports club compete in the English rugby league top tier.

For football fans though, there is something of a respite, assuming you can suspend your disbelief just a little to tune in for some FIFA esports streams. In fact, the Premier League ran their own official tournament in April, inviting a player from each club to compete in knockout rounds. It proved popular worldwide, and was even shown in the UK by the BBC and Sky Sports. All the matches are available to watch on YouTube here, although – annoyingly – the scores are in the video titles.

Whether the Premier League do decide to run another tournament is unknown, but there are plenty of other games to watch, both from professional footballers and other streamers. Manchester City’s Sergio Aguero (SLAKUN10) has been streaming FIFA 20 onto Twitch, amusingly losing to Brazil 1-0 in the 120th minute! If you go to vulkanbet.com/en/fifa, you can actually see a list of many active FIFA games, with an embedded Twitch player so you can watch along as well.

In fact, In May this year the FIFA eNations Cup will take place, before the pinnacle of the FIFA eWorld Cup Series commences in July. Here, the top 32 players from the previous rounds take to FIFA 20 to compete for the grand prize. In previous years, this has taken place all over the world, including New York City, Rio de Janeiro and the past three years in London.

For those who follow Formula 1, a number of professional drivers have also been participating in tournaments, but not without strong competition from other official esports racers. Even Thibaut Courtois, the former Chelsea number one, and Ben Stokes have joined in to pit themselves in an F1 car. The Virtual Grand Prix has been running since mid-March, and at the time of writing has run three successful championships, with the next scheduled to take place in Brazil from 3rd May.

Of course, watching esports just isn’t quite the same as the real thing – but it provides some light entertainment during these trying times.