Football faces a losing battle with cult computer game Fortnite unless it embraces technological change, according to Liverpool CEO Peter Moore.
The wildly popular shooter-survival game attracted more than 125 million within a year of its summer 2017 release and developer Tim Sweeney made $7 billion in 2018.
As a former leading figure at Sega, Microsoft and EA Sports, Moore is uniquely positioned to talk about the threat such ventures pose to football in an age when digital exposure is of ever-increasing importance.
“There’s a millennial generation growing up that, unlike our generation where our dad took us to the game and we didn’t have technology get in the way, technology now is an alternative to watching live sports,” he said on Wednesday at the 13th Dubai International Sports Conference.
“When I look at viewing and attendance figures of millennial males I’m concerned as a CEO of a football club that relies on the next generation of fans coming through.
“I’m concerned that if we don’t build technological prowess as a club, we will lose them. There’s so much pressure now and only 24 hours in a day, there’s only so many hours to play Fortnite, so many hours for screen time.”
Third-party research has stated the Premier League leaders have 771 million fans across the globe. Such popularity, when compared to Fortnite’s revenues, made Moore declare football is underperforming financially.
He said: “If it’s true that football is worth $35 billion a year in revenue, we are performing badly. We should be a $50 or 100 billion industry.”