Scouting new talent has traditionally been on site. Several of the World’s best athletes in history have been discovered by professional scouts on trips around the world.
Information technology has opened further opportunities to reduce market failures by scouting for talent around the world, online.
Videos are one way in which players can be recruited, such as with video contests or submissions, but that cannot show the whole spectrum of what it takes for a player to win a game.
It would take a more advanced technology such as Virtual Reality or Augmented Reality to do that. While it would have been inconceivable not long ago, detecting talent from around the world through simulations will be the tendency in the near future.
An example of a sport that has taken advantage of such technologies is car racing. James Baldwin (ENG) last year won the World’s Fastest Gamer contest, which helped propel his Simracing career, which consolidated after winning the Virtual Edition of the Race of Champions.
His simracing antics gave former F1 World Champion Jenson Button (ENG) the trust to put James on one of his cars for the British GT Championship.
Last weekend he made his debut in Oulton Park, and he won. It was his first ever car race. “Winning my first race wasn’t part of the script when we got to the track on Friday”, – he said (The-Race).
Karting used to be the training ground for car racing but Baldwin did not have enough funds to continue racing (BBC).
Thanks to simracing he has got a second chance in car racing and is taking the bull by the horns. Expect more cases like this one in other sports.
