Esports Governance: Exploring Stakeholder Dynamics

Esports is a rapidly growing industry. However, the unidentifiable governance structure of the industry has contributed to a number of integrity-eroding activities. By exploring esports stakeholder dynamics, this paper answers the question, &ldquo
Is the esports governance model sustainable?&rdquo
Data were sourced from documentation, focus groups (N = 3) and semi-structured interviews (N = 6). Thematic analysis was conducted using Nvivo. The findings suggest that (1) the current esports governance framework features some attributes of the &ldquo
lead organisation-governed network&rdquo
with the power residing mainly in game publishers
(2) the rising power of other stakeholders in the network seeking to address integrity issues has caused fragmentation of the esports governance framework
(3) esports governance is evolving towards a network administration organisation (NAO) model. Such evolution has a few challenges&mdash
most notably, the compliance of game publishers. Given the social impact of the integrity issues, governments should play a main role in facilitating a NAO model.