About the Nordic Esports project

In our Nordic Esports project, conducted in 2023–2025, we explore esports in the Nordic countries from various perspectives, aiming to create a thorough description on how esports is organised and what kind of esports culture is being created in the Nordics. We examine both individual Nordic countries and their esports activities as well as the Nordic Esports Federation (NEF) and other forms of Nordic esports collaboration, such as Nordic championship tournaments.

The aim of this project is to describe how esports aligns within Nordic society, culture, language politics, and sports, and what are the special features of Nordic esports compared to global esports environments. Our three focus areas within the project are (1) organisation and funding of esports in the Nordic countries; (2) values and politics in Nordic esports; and (3) diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in Nordic esports. Another theme that we have identified as very central in the context of Nordic esports during this process is education.

In this blog post, we will present some of the initial insights that we have gained while working on this topic and collecting our research materials. Please follow the project website for our upcoming publications on these topics!

Researching ‘Nordic Esports’

While the Nordic Esports Federation (NEF) is currently planning for a physical headquarters in Stockholm, we see that ‘Nordic Esports’ is done on multiple levels and sites, online as well as offline. As such, our research design is informed by connective ethnography (Hine, 2007), where not only the sites are relevant but also the connections between them. In this case, our fieldwork has centred around both physical events such as Nordic esports competitions, but also the online presence of the different federations, teams, and collaborators in relation to the events on multiple platforms. Esports in general is a form of networked media sport (Hutchins & Rowe, 2013) that needs to be explored simultaneously in many parallel environments.

In July 2024, we had the honour of taking part of the Nordic Esports Federation Summit in Kristiansand, Norway. During the summit we could observe firsthand how the NEF plans for future events and collaborations but also how the members debate what values the organisation stands for. For a research project like this, observing such discussions is highly meaningful to see the complexity of cross-national collaboration. Apart from field notes during physical events and documented online presence in relation to them, we have also interviewed key stakeholders organising and participating in these events. Currently, we have spoken to representatives from Finland, Sweden and Norway, but hope to talk to representatives from Denmark and Iceland in the future as well. As our research requires close collaboration with these organisations and takes us very close to the people involved in these activities, our priority is to conduct rigorous research and simultaneously respect the trust shown to us by them and to follow all ethical guidelines to the highest standard.

Organisational, financial, and cultural structures in Nordic esports

Each Nordic country has a national esports federation: The Finnish Esports Federation (SEUL) in Finland, Svenska E-sportförbundet (SESF) in Sweden, Norges E-sportforbund (NESF) in Norway, Esport Danmark (ESD) in Denmark, and Rafíþróttasamband Íslands (RÍSÍ) in Iceland. These national organisations aim to operate as the primary national esports representatives in their respective countries – although they may not always be recognised as such unanimously in the field. They also tend to seek for institutional recognition from and collaboration with governmental bodies and national sport organisations, with varying outcomes. Positive examples in this area include the Finnish Esports Federation being accepted as a full member of the national Olympic Committee in 2019 and the Svenska E-sportförbundet as a member of the National Sports Confederation (Riksidrottsförbundet) in May 2023. Most of these organisations are running on volunteer labour and are funded by commercial partnerships, although there are exceptions, such as the Finnish federation being almost entirely funded by the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture.

The Nordic Esports Federation (NEF) was founded in November 2023 in Iceland, to strengthen the collaboration between the national federations in the Nordics, to create synergy benefits for project and funding opportunities, and to achieve greater political impact, both regionally and globally.  In our discussions with its representatives, the NEF is often presented as a counterforce to the existing international esports federations, described as presenting different types of values and practices, namely lack of democracy and transparency, corruption allegations, and decisions that were seen as unethical, such as the International Esports Federation IESF allowing Russian players to participate in the world championship tournament as representatives of their country despite Russia’s invasion war in Ukraine.

As Nordic countries have branded themselves as global forerunners in equality, and representatives of the Nordic esports federations also describe their organisations as strongly value-driven, these federations represent an interesting case for studying how diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) questions in esports appear and are addressed in these national and cultural contexts. The Nordic federations seem determined to create a cultural change in esports, and as one of the NEF summit delegates put it, ‘If we don’t do it, who will?’

Promoting gender equality through women’s esports

In our discussions with the representatives of the Nordic esports federations, many have emphasised promoting gender equality in esports as one of the central goals of the Nordic esports collaboration. In practice, the Nordic federations have organised esports events for women, aiming to promote women’s esports and to create opportunities for women to develop their skills and compete at high-level events. As a part of our research, we have attended two of these events: Women’s Nordic CS2 Championship Tournament in Gothenburg, Sweden, in December 2023, and a showcase CS2 match between Norwegian and Finnish women’s national teams at Bergen Games in April 2024.

Gender-segregation is a highly contested question, both in esports research and in the field. On one hand, they are seen as an opportunity for athletes who do not identify as cis-gender men to showcase their talent and develop their skills in a safe environment; on the other hand, they do not aim to fix the gender equality issues on the main stages and can be seen as further marginalising those who represent marginalised gender identities in esports (Crothers et al., 2024; Friman et al., 2024).

At the same time, athletes participating in the events we studied seemed to feel that these events are still much needed and that they play an important role in promoting women esports athletes and offering them opportunities for high-level competition, skill development, and networking. However, with the events focusing only on women (at least in the name, although the practical interpretations varied), there lies also a risk of excluding athletes who represent other marginalised identities, such as players who are nonbinary, genderqueer, or in the process of gender affirmation, and do not feel belonging in ‘women’s esports’ either.

Building better esports through education?

Building and supporting infrastructure is among the NEF Goal Statements, with education as one key focus area. In particular, they emphasise the need for defining a standard for coaching and then providing education in line with this standard. Current research on esports and education has previously focused on the US and/or North America (see e.g. Cote et al., 2023) or from an Asian context (see e.g Dzikus & Song, 2024). Academic research on esports and education in the Nordic context is limited, and the existing literature currently seems fragmented and mainly focused on one national context. Radmann and Midthaugen (2024) discuss esports in relation to Norwegian schools and find that certain aspects of contemporary esports, such as the marginalisation of women and violent in-game content, conflict with educational values. On the other hand, they also see that esports in education can be a way to improve analytical skills as well as communication and cooperation. As such, building on the fragmented literature on the topic, one analytical lens we see as relevant for further exploration is esports and education in the Nordic context and how this is connected to Nordic values and society. Furthermore, we believe that developing new models and standards for esports education, where diversity, equity, and inclusion are considered core values, could be a central contribution from the Nordic federations into building a better esports culture – both locally and globally.

Note: The Nordic Esports project is conducted by Postdoctoral Research fellows Usva Friman and Matilda Ståhl at Tampere University Game Research Lab as a part of the Centre of Excellence in Game Culture Studies.

Authors’ bios and contact info

References

Cote, A., Wilson, A., Hansen. J., Harris, B., Rahman, M., Can, O., Fickle, T., and Foxman, M. (2023). Taking care of toxicity: Challenges and strategies for inclusion in U.S. collegiate esports programs. Journal of Electronic Gaming and Esports, 1(1). https://doi.org/10.1123/jege.2022-0031

Crothers, H., Scott-Brown, K.C. and Cunningham, S.J. (2024). ‘It’s just not safe’: Gender-based harassment and toxicity experiences of women in esports. Games and Culture, online first. https://doi.org/10.1177/15554120241273358

Dzikus, L. & Song, Y. (2024). Collegiate esports in South Korea and the United States: Origins and governance. In A. R. Hofmann & P. M. Camara (Eds.), Critical perspectives on esports (pp. 165–181). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003383178-17

Friman, U., Ruotsalainen, M., & Ståhl, M. (2024). Diversity, equity, and inclusion in esports. In S.E. Jenny, N. Besombes, T. Brock, A. C. Cote, & T. M. Scholz (Eds.), Routledge handbook of esports (pp. 540–550). Routledge.

Hine, C. (2007). Connective ethnography for the exploration of e-science. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 12(2), 618–34. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1083-6101.2007.00341.x.

Hutchins, B. & Rowe, D. (2013, Eds.). Digital media sport: Technology, power and culture in the network society. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203382851

Radmann, A. & Midthaugen, P. (2024). Esports in Norwegian upper secondary education: Integration, challenges, and opportunities in the 21st century. In A. R. Hofmann & P. M. Camara (Eds.), Critical perspectives on esports (pp. 135–151). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003383178-15