Football Manager is one of the most successful formats in gaming history due to its strong and realistic connection to the beautiful game. The long-running simulator has a fierce and loyal fanbase who spend hours perfecting the art of football management and like-minded players are often heard comparing notes on their recent successes and failures. Although the original iteration of the game was first released in 1992 as ‘Championship Manager’, the highly publicised split between Sports Interactive and the game’s publisher Eidos temporarily muddied the waters, with the former retaining the all-important source code and the latter keeping hold of the naming rights.
Under its current guise, the first official release of Football Manager (FM) finally arrived in 2005 with Sega having jumped on board as the new publisher. Although there was additional competition with Eidos continuing to churn out similar products under the ‘Championship Manager’ umbrella, fans relished the opportunity to test out a bunch of exciting new features including squad reports from coaches, international news updates and the option to have more control of player loans.
With Football Manager emphatically outselling its rival, the game was able to establish itself as a frontrunner with the addition of the 3D match engine in 2009 proving to be the catalyst for enhanced gameplay. It helped to take this popular simulator to the next level.
There tends to be a fair amount of hype each October ahead of the game’s release at the beginning of November, however, for the first time in two decades, FM fans will be forced to wait a little while longer to sample the latest incarnation of Football Manager.
Although this news has left some fans feeling bereft, a highly exciting development took place earlier this year. It was announced in August that the first-ever FIFA eWorld Cup will feature Football Manager. With 19 different FIFA member associations represented at the event and a prize pool of 100,000 USD, this groundbreaking and experimental tournament proved to be very popular with football fans around the globe and many bookmakers allowed bettors to wager on a match-by-match basis as well as on the eventual outcome of the competition. Indonesia’s victory was well-deserved and many guests from the professional game including John Terry were in attendance.
One content creator opted to provide a running commentary on each manager’s progress and this added a much-needed light-hearted and informative touch to the tournament.
With the appetite for eFootball and betting on football-based e-sports competitions continually growing, this appears to be yet another step in the right direction. Although most established online bookmakers have highly competitive odds on upcoming tournaments, there are also plenty of casino sites also offer a comprehensive sportsbook service, many of which cater for esports aficionados with multiple markets on upcoming events.
Arguably the biggest challenge for developers is to make this game fully esports-compatible whilst also managing to keep it true to its roots. Football Manager players are a dedicated bunch and this time-consuming pastime hasn’t always felt like a natural fit for global viewing, however, there does appear to be an appetite for this development. There are multiple layers to this game and despite the complexities, streaming platforms such as Twitch have been very accommodating when it comes to lower-profile FM events over the past couple of seasons.
At its core, Football Manager doesn’t feel like a natural fit for the esports treatment, however, recent trials have shown that this immersive title can potentially function on the bigger stage. There will always be challenges, yet the demand for FM content across the last decade has shown that there should be enough interest to sustain this venture. Questions remain about the length of each tournament with players potentially being asked to complete a full season in a pre-determined length of time.
Although FIFAe isn’t willing to commit its long-term future to online FM tournaments, they have promised to ‘evaluate and digest’ recent events before making a decision. There have been some low-profile offshoots taking place, yet this collaboration was a significant step forward and the clearest indication so far that Football Manager does potentially have a future as an esports spectacle.
