SVG Europe
“There’s no question esports will be a permanent part of the ecosystem 10 years from now,” declared Casey Wasserman, chair of LA28.
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The scale of ambition of the Esports World Cup Foundation, which runs esports out of Saudi Arabia, is not to be present at an Olympic Games – arguably it is to become the Olympic Games.
Certainly, the organisers of the Esports World Cup (EWC) and the just announced Esports Nations Cup scheduled for November 2026, look up to the Olympics as a model for generating global media interest and near-universal country participation. This is one reason why the chair of the 2028 LA Olympics organising committee was given a front row seat at EWC2025, which concluded on Sunday (24 August) in Riyadh, and its associate conference The New Global Sports Conference (NGSC).
“It’s about having a clarity of direction, a clarity of operating ethos and in real time, dealing with the things that come up every day,” said Wasserman, comparing the Olympic leadership experience with the foundation’s plans to host bigger world events. “The challenge is that if you are caught up in how big and how complex, how nuanced and unique it is, then you’re probably not paying enough attention to your day job.”
Among other challenges, Wasserman had to contend with fallout, in reputational terms if nothing else, from President Trump’s deployment of the National Guard in LA and potential visa issues for competing athletes and coaches from countries such as Iran in light of the White House’s aggressive immigration agenda.
“We can’t buy more time. Every minute is precious and every minute that we’re not focused on what we’re doing by worrying about something that may or may not happen or the scale or the pressure, we’re taking our eye off the ball,” he insisted. “It’s my job to keep the organisation focused and clear.”
Wasserman was asked by Peter Radovich, VP of production & senior creative director, CBS Sports, if he agreed that the Olympic movement was behind the curve when it came to embracing digital and social media. How much of a conversation was Wasserman having about this in meetings with the IOC?
“Our first job is to operate and deliver the games and make sure that the competitive atmosphere on the field is world class,” Wasserman said. “If we don’t do that, it doesn’t matter how many cool people talk about it or where they talk about it. The main thing is the main thing.
“That said, LA is the creative capital of the world, so the opportunity is to evolve how people communicate and connect to share the glory and wonder of the Olympics. Our job is make sure we are pushing the media partners at the IOC (OBS) to open up their aperture and to understand that if we’re going to do this it would be a shame not to take advantage of [social networks and mobile] to engage a new generation of fans and ensure that the Olympic movement is as important in 50 years as it is today.”
The question of national pride was firmly on the agenda at the event. Pride in one’s country wouldn’t have been questioned a few years ago but with conflict between and inside countries on the rise, only an event like the Olympics has the power to unify.
“I don’t think there’s less interest in the Olympics during the window that it happens,” Wasserman said. “What there is, is a lot more that happens in between Olympic cycles than it used to. I will tell you that during the 17 days of the Olympics and 10 days of the Paralympics it will be the highest rated TV show every night drawing a bigger audience than anything other than Super Bowl. That it is one of the last vestiges of common culture is what makes the Olympics special. The Olympics is one of the things that the whole family can sit down around and enjoy and that is universal to every country.
“What makes it special is that is not just about a small group of world-class athletes who are at the highest level of the game. It is about the opportunities that the event brings for all athletes across an unbelievable number of sports. Their stories, and those moments of success, are really powerful. That’s what gravitates and pulls people to the Olympics.
“Our job is to make sure that the LA Olympics Paralympics are the greatest they can be. I believe the world will come together and embrace and experience those games, and it’s our job to make sure that they’re at the calibre they should be to give people the experience that they want.”
As to his creative plans for setting tone in and around the event, Wasserman claimed Los Angeles is the city “with most diversity in the history of humanity”.
He elaborated: “We have to be authentically LA. What makes LA special is that every country who comes will have a home team crowd built into the city. We are the entertainment creative capital of the world, and so I imagine, just like our hand-off ceremony (featuring Tom Cruise abseiling off the Olympic stadium roof in Paris), you’ll see a lot of star power.
“What I hope we can accomplish for the month is that we will have put LA onto a better course – just as the Olympics did in 1932 and 1984. If we do our job, then we’re able to leave a financial legacy like they did in ’84.
“LA can have a better future because of hosting their games, not because it’s measured in those 30 days but because of what those 30 days can allow it to do in the next 30 years. We saw that coming out of ’84 and I certainly hope we’ll see that coming out in ’28 if we stay true to ourselves and be authentically American. These are America’s games, they are in Los Angeles but there will be events all over the country. They are America’s games and if we stay true to our core we have a great opportunity to deliver on that.”
The Olympic movement has been skirting the edges of esports for several events now undecided over whether to fully embrace video gaming as a sport on a par with BMX biking or break dancing and unsure too how to deal with the games publishers who the effective federations in control of the sport.
The Olympic Esports Series which ran at various venues and times since 2021 has now become the Esports Olympics, the first of which will be held in 2027 – in Riyadh, of course.
Wasserman, who is also founder and CEO of his own sports marketing and talent agency, said he liked what he saw at EWC.
“The foundation here is world class in terms of creating a viable structured competition around a broad set of games with a very inclusive environment. That’s a really powerful piece in the puzzle that will continue to grow as the technology evolves to where you’ve got billions of connected devices, no latency, 4K video and hundreds of people playing together in a game in a peer-to-peer environment. Then that becomes a different version of esports, a different sort of competition.
“What’s undeniable is the quantity of people who play video games and equally as important the quantity of people who watch people play video games. Those two numbers are staggering which means there’s the foundation for great success.
“There’s no question esports will be a permanent part of the ecosystem 10 years from now. The important thing for the organisers, publishers and investors in esports is not to analyse it with a traditional media lens because if you do you probably miss the plot. It’s important to think about this from the perspective of the fan and the gamer, not from the POV of old timer like me who’s used to watching SportsCenter.”
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