The Portuguese esports ecosystem: an exploratory approach

eSports are an emerging phenomena worldwide. I would like to argue that eSports are one of the activities that best illustrate the dynamics of network communication [1, 2]. What had appeared as a digital media phenomenon, shortly became a legacy media content. Media companies throughout the world are investing in broadcasting eSports competitions and establishing partnerships with individual content producers that are contributing to the emergence of a new professional activity-digital games streamers [3]. Additionally, eSports are asserting themselves both as a cultural and creative industry. They are part of a complex network of media, game producers, players, and individual digital content producers. Based on a qualitative methodology having document analysis as primary data collection method, this paper intends to discuss the growing relevance of eSports as a networked media phenomena and to present the particular case of Portugal. Data from an exploratory research will be presented aiming at maping the Portuguese eSports media ecosystem.