Fortnite is the biggest threat to young people wanting to play football, that's according to Liverpool chief executive Peter Moore.
Echoing the sentiments of streaming service Netflix a couple of weeks ago, who said "We compete with (and lose to) Fortnite more than HBO" in a letter to shareholders, the Chief Executive of Liverpool football club has said that Epic's hit shooter is one of the biggest threats to recruiting new fans.
Peter Moore - the former head of EA Sports, and ex-Microsoft and SEGA, too (so he knows a bit about video games) - has revealed that it's not other clubs that he's worried about, in terms of rivals to Liverpool's domestic and global audience. More, it's a certain high-profile battle royale game.
Speaking to Arabian Business magazine, he said:
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"Ninety minutes is a long time for a millennial male to sit down on a couch. When I look at viewing and attendance figures of millennial males, I'm concerned as a chief executive of a football club that relies on the next generation of fans coming through.
"If we don't build technological prowess as a club, we will lose them. There's so much pressure on time now and only 24 hours in a day... there are only so many hours to play Fortnite."
The free-to-play battle royale title has a player base of over 200 million, and certainly is likely to share an overlap in demographics with football fans. Given his background, it's fair to say Moore probably has some idea of what he's talking about, though it is much harder to imagine just how he expects to compete with a phenomenon like Fortnite. Liverpool FC lootboxes, anyone?
Moore, who's been CEO of the club since 2017 - the same club he's supported since he was a boy - added that football is "an industry that needs to harness technology, to make sure we don't miss an entire generation of young people growing up, who don't have that love for football. We need to package content in bites of 60 to 90 seconds, to keep their engagement."
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Sorry Peter, drifted off there for a moment. And just how long is 90 minutes for anyone who isn't a millennial male to spend on a sofa? Does time move slower or faster if you're a Gen-Z girl? These are the questions we need answering - so feel free to tell us, on Twitter and Facebook.
Words: Sam Greer
Featured Image Credit: KonamiTopics: video games, Liverpool, Football News, Fortnite, FIFA 19, Premier League, Jurgen Klopp, Liverpool FC