On Esports AV: Sony Electronics

AVT Question: Please share trends and insights into esports’ dynamic and quickly evolving landscape.

Thought Leader: Joe Drury, Pro BRAVIA Business Manager, Professional Display Solutions at Sony Electronics

If there are still any doubts about the legitimacy of esports, then there’s no stronger indication of the market’s potential than the higher education segment.

The generation of students currently in the higher education pipeline represents the latest wave of digital natives who view non-traditional avenues like esports as viable career opportunities. Schools are aggressively recruiting these candidates, with many positioning themselves to compete at the highest NCAA levels. Many institutions are building esports facilities that can function both as student programming labs and as event venues for esports athletic clubs, leveraging this flexibility to maximize their investments.

Even with esports’ popularity and rapid market growth, there’s still no real blueprint or benchmark for developing an esports lab. Most esports labs are fully immersive environments filled with equipment optimized for highly technical requirements. Pro BRAVIA BZ40L and BZ53L displays give esports lab designers the ability to engineer these spaces however they choose while being able to incorporate professional displays that can manage the ambient and direct lighting challenges native to these environments.

Higher education institutions are looking for simplicity from the standpoint of knowing they can purchase products that are easy to use and will perform to their expectations. Most importantly, many schools prefer to work with one central point of contact, or at most, a small group of manufacturers who can help them understand how to optimize their esports capabilities.

Sony supports the growing esports market with a unique, one-stop-shop portfolio of integrated products and solutions—Pro BRAVIA displays, projectors, PTZ cameras, Crystal LED videowalls, headphones, and broadcast technology. This breadth of resources enables schools to truly create something beautiful, with the simplified setup and management they need as their esports infrastructures expand.