Chet «ImAPet» Singh, coach of Evil Genuises, was recently interviewed by HLTV to talk about how the coronavirus pandemic will affect cybersports. He believes that teams that are not at the top and rookies who have only recently started playing will suffer first. Although many games are being converted to an online format, the number of tournaments will decrease, which means players will have fewer chances to prove themselves and increase their rankings. As a result, many teams may lose sponsors.
The growth of the online format, while an appropriate response to the situation, brings some specific challenges. In many regions, networks are not fully coping with the increased load. ImAPet noted that the team has already encountered problems during practices due to high ping. He does not rule out that similar difficulties will start to arise at the competitions.
In addition, the Evil Geniuses coach worries that after the ESL Pro League is over, the calendar of events for American teams will remain essentially unfilled, since most of the tournaments will soon be held in Europe.
Individual players have already faced restrictions due to the coronavirus pandemic. For example, smooya, who previously played on the US team Chaos, left the team because he was unable to renew his visa due to quarantine to return to the US.
