Uncertainty and Demand: Watching Dota 2 Tournaments during COVID-19 Pandemic

The aim of this graduate qualification work is to identify the impact of betting and COVID-19 on the audience of matches, using statistics on several tournaments in the Dota 2 discipline before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. The methods of this project are literature review and construction of regression models, linear and linear with joint effect, nonlinear and nonlinear with joint effect. Results - the hypothesis about the influence of the uncertainty of the outcome on the formation of the audience of matches was confirmed, the coefficients for the variable reflecting the uncertainty of the outcome were significant in both models 1.1 and 2.1; COVID-19 does not affect the uncertainty of the outcome in the formation of viewer demand, but the factor turned out to be significant for viewers watching the broadcasts. The influence of other factors that form the demand model for the spectator audience of matches was also revealed: the match belonging to the group stage negatively affects the audience interest, the growth of the audience of matches is positive if at least one team from North America or the CIS countries participates in the match. The results of this project can be used by tournament operators when determining the format of a tournament in the esports discipline Dota 2.