Recently Chet «ImAPet» Singh, coach of the Evil Genuises team, gave an interview to the HLTV portal, in which he talked about how the coronavirus pandemic will affect esports. He believes that, first of all, teams that are not among the top and newcomers who have only recently started playing will suffer. Even though many games are moving online, the number of tournaments will be reduced, meaning players will have fewer chances to prove themselves and improve their rankings. As a result, many teams may lose their sponsors.
The growth of the online format, although an adequate response to the situation, leads to the emergence of some specific problems. In many regions, networks cannot fully cope with the increased load. ImAPet noted that the team has already encountered problems during training due to high ping. He does not rule out that similar difficulties will begin to arise at competitions.
In addition, the Evil Geniuses coach is worried that after the completion of ESL Pro League the calendar of events for American teams will remain essentially empty, since most of the tournaments will take place in Europe in the near future.
Individual players have already faced restrictions due to the coronavirus pandemic. For example, smooya, who previously played in the American team Chaos, left it because he could not renew his visa due to quarantine in order to return to the USA.
