Despite its flaws and ignominy as an international sports entity, the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) has enormous global popularity and influence like no other. And the organization’s hallmark video game — simply titled “FIFA” (and then followed by the year succeeding the year of each game’s release) — has become one of the most popular video games on all mainstream consoles and devices. Thus, just as there is a FIFA World Cup every four years in which participating nations compete for global football supremacy, there is a FIFA Interactive World Cup in which participating gamers compete for global electronic football supremacy.
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The FIFA Interactive World Cup (FIWC) is an “annual tournament held by FIFA and EA Sports… where players compete for the title of world’s best FIFA gamer.” It’s a massive showcase in which the 32 best FIFA players across the world come together in a host city and duke it out to determine who the best of the best is.
The host city for the 2016 FIWC was New York City, and the tournament took place in Munich, Rio de Janeiro, and Madrid the three years before that, with someone different winning the competition’s $20,000 cash prize (along with a trip to the FIFA Ballon d’Or ceremony) each year. The 2016 FIWC took place March 20-22, with Mohamad Al-Bacha of Denmark emerging victorious over England’s Sean Allen.
However, even though nothing about the 2016 competition was different than those preceding it, this year’s FIWC possessed a renowned significance. The 2016 FIWC was broadcast on Fox Sports 1, which serves as further affirmation that eSports are making their way into the world of traditional sports.
To see the FIWC broadcast on a channel that shows the likes of baseball, college basketball, gymnastics and more is like the presence of an eSports vertical on the ESPN website, a huge win for eSports. But the showing of the FIWC on live TV also enhances the popularity of the event, as exponentially more people viewed it in 2016 and will view it in future years than did in years past. And greater popularity for the FIWC means greater popularity for FIFA in general — which is especially important for countries like the US and Australia where international football is not a sport with a large following.
The FIWC, and its newfound presence on live TV, makes FIFA and international football more relatable for sports fans around the world. Not that football needs any more popularity — but if video games are what finally gets Americans to follow football with the same vigor they follow other sports, FIFA certainly won’t complain.