The best Online Games for Sports Fans

The essence and appeal of professional sports is the competitive, high-quality gameplay across a range of popular team and solo sports. It appeals to a competitive edge that is hard-wired into many of us. 

There’s a strong crossover and serious correlation between online gamers and sports fans. Sports fans enjoy many games that intersect, whether they are home video console games based on their favorite sports or team competition console first-person shooter or strategy games.

Millions of us enjoy playing games, ranging from sports with friends, poker nights, free-to-play internet titles, a few blackjack games, or a sports bet. Online casino gaming has highlighted the scope and appetite for competitive gaming, with many sports-themed slot games becoming popular over the last decade. 

Despite China’s size, US gamers comprise the highest portion of the gaming industry market. With sports betting legislation loosening in several states, the crossover between competitive gaming, sports betting, and sports fandom is becoming more closely interlocked.

EA Sports titles

No company has been able to grab the imagination of sports gamers quite like EA Sports. For some fans, they’ll be synonymous with the FIFA gaming title, a landmark soccer game that was recently rebranded to EA Sports FC. In the USA, it doesn’t get bigger than NFL Madden — a game that has now entertained multiple generations of American football fanatics. 

If you’re a bit older, then you might remember other classic EA Sports games for older consoles like Knockout Kings, WWE or Tiger Woods PGA Tour. Part of the incredible, continued success of these games has been thanks to sports fans being able to compete against each other online. 

Before the internet, friends would get together to play FIFA or Madden. Online games have dominated the competition over the last decade, shifting the entire experience into the digital realm. Professional video game tournaments now utilize the internet to stream tournament gameplay, and the prize pools involved have become enormous. 

The growth of online gaming: Crossover genres

Even if we explore further back in time, before video console gaming, there was a huge market for people who wanted to get together and play games. Online games simply created communities where people could use the heightened accessibility and convenience to seek out the games that most appealed to them. 

Although sports fans often turn to games based on sports, like the ones we discussed in the previous section, there’s a broad range of titles for competitive gaming, and many other titles and genres appeal to sports fans. You only need to look at CS:GO, Call of Duty or Grand Theft Auto. These games aren’t sports-based, but they’re some of the most popular online games anywhere on the internet.

Why there’s been such a successful crossover between these genres and sports fans is yet to be determined. However, many analysts and gaming experts believe it is simply down to the gaming quality. 

There’s no disputing that FIFA, Madden, Grand Theft Auto and a long list of other online games are highly engaging, regardless of the sport you love. In a digital age, where you can stay perennially connected to sports and gaming, whether via social media, podcasts or a combination of the two, gamers have benefitted immensely from the incredible developments in the industry. 

Correlation between niche sports and online games 

If you’re a fan of less popular sports that don’t enjoy quite the same popularity levels as the NFL or NBA in the US, you might be intrigued by different types of games. There are many free-to-play online games that you can access on your mobile phone or via your laptop or desktop PC.

Less popular sports like boxing, golf and tennis attract different audiences. Boxing fans, for instance, may enjoy the strategic element of the combat sport, so the best online games for them could mirror games like chess or other strategy-based games rather than just a sports game that mirrors their interests. In addition, just because somebody enjoys a specific sport doesn’t necessarily mean they will seek out games that solely revolve around it. 

There’s a colossal number of games and given that online gaming is worth hundreds of billions of dollars per year and is likely to become a trillion-dollar industry within the next couple of decades, the sheer scope available is astounding. With this kind of variety comes a whole wave of sports fans looking to make the most of what’s available. 

Conclusion

As we have discussed today, there’s no official correlation between sports fans and whether they seek out games solely specific to their passion. Many sports fans who might not like American football will play NFL Madden, and the same applies to FIFA or EA Sports FC. 

The online gaming universe is staggering; there are free-to-play games, classic games that predate the internet, which have been adapted for an online audience and hundreds of award-winning games and genres in between. 

The best online games don’t box themselves into a single category. You only need to look at how the latest GTA trailer has broken the internet. Gamers from all over the world watched it, and casual gamers who hadn’t even played a PlayStation game for years were blown away by the news of the latest chapter of one of the most iconic games ever made. You don’t need to be a sports fan to appreciate the quality of certain games, and you don’t need to be an ardent gamer to appreciate top-level sports.

What is your favorite Sports Game? Let us know and keep gaming 😉