Instead Of Watching Sports, What Are People Doing? Gaming.

What are people doing with no live sports to watch on television? They’re playing games themselves — video games.

A new report on media habits during the COVID-19 outbreak finds a huge uptick in gaming as the pandemic continues. MIDiA found that during March, time spent playing electronic games soared by 22% in the United States and 20% in the UK.

The report speculates that those who usually watch sports replaced that activity with gaming. It certainly appears possible.

Since the NBA suspended its season on March 11, and other professional sports leagues quickly followed, there has been virtually no live sports content available. And that’s a big hit to television consumption.

Last year, for instance, the NFL alone accounted for 5.1% of all live TV consumed. When you add in college football, that rises to 7.6%, and that’s just one sport.

So it’s natural that other media activities would fill in the gap left by live sports. The report found notable gains for Minecraft and Grand Theft Auto. Xbox and PlayStation have seen minutes played rise, too.

For those who subscribe to premium gaming content, the outbreak, and the interest in finding entertainment alternatives, could have long-term impacts.

“Although much of this behavior will normalize even before lockdown measures are eased, there will be some changes that will have long-term impact, with the residual highwater mark of some activities left higher than before the consumption deluge,” says Mark Mulligan, MIDiA managing director and author of the report.

That may play out across other media, too. For instance, someone who had been thinking about canceling Hulu might decide to maintain the subscription for the next few months just to have more content to choose from while staying inside.

The report also found the Apple App Store and Google Play Store have seen big gains in downloads of games, as well as video communication apps being used for telecommuting and staying in touch with relatives.

Four games made the top 10: Perfect Cream, Park Master, House Restoration and Save the Girl!, which MIDiA says reflects boredom on the part of consumers looking for something to do.