IOC pays close attention to virtual sports

INTERNATIONAL Olympic Committee President, Thomas Bach says that confederations should take an active role in the organisation and governance of virtual or electronic versions of their sports.

  “Whilst maintaining our principles by respecting the red line, with regard to the Olympic values, we encourage all our stakeholders even more urgently to ‘consider how to govern electronic and virtual forms of their sport and explore opportunities with game publishers’,” Bach wrote in a letter to members of his organisation.

  The Olympic movement includes a wide variety of disciplines, with varying degrees of popularity but virtual sports are being considered a viable stop-gap for sports fans.

  Several global sports already have lucrative relationships with their virtual sports counterparts with licensed Formula 1 games and the Fifa franchise being excellent examples. Top F1 drivers have even joined in on the virtual racing calendar and have excelled.

  The most intense of sports fans are those who have something riding on the outcome, and the sports betting industry is already looking to virtual events to keep them going.

  CEO and founder of betting company Golden Race, Martin Wachter says his company would also be looking to increase its markets in the arena beyond the time of lockdowns and social distancing guidelines.

  “I see virtual sports as a big opportunity,” he said in an interview with iGB. “You have to understand that what you push now in online it will be here, it will remain.

  “And when you are back in retail, when you are back with your sports betting, you still will have the beauty of virtual sports in your traffic. People get used to it, so this is what I see in Golden Race. Even if we lose all the retail and we lose money.