I'll speak for the late 20's Crowd (although I just turned 30..)
No one in my age group, that I know, watches sports at home.
If they do, they go to the bar to do it.
ESports are MUCH more interesting for at-home watching.
Consider this - does any individual esports team make anywhere near what Lebron James, individually makes, including his salary and all his various sponsorships?
Its easy to sit in your SV bubble and claim such a thing but live sports is huge. ESPN alone is considered to be the most expensive sports channel [1]. Lets be real, how many American children are aiming to be the next Lebron James vs Fatil1ty (how many young people know who Fat1lity is?)
Esports might be more interesting for you and your friends, but lets make sure that we aren't projecting our preferences on 300 million Americans.
Your anecdote is not representative of the whole. You have certain interests and your friends share them. The NFL (not to mention the other major sports) is huge with young people. Much larger than your e-"sports".
A lot of people your age will eventually have children or will no longer find going to the bar regularly that enjoyable.
If you look at how much money major sports franchise owners are spending on improving the in-game experience for fans, and listen to their thoughts on doing so, it's pretty clear that they are fighting hard to get people to actually come to games rather than watching them on TV.
NFL Football is the most popular sports league in the US and quite frankly, I find the product to be almost unwatchable live compared to television. I think basketball and hockey are much more enjoyable in person, but that's also expensive and more time consuming than seeing them on TV, and both leagues play around 80 games a season, I believe.
A useless data point, but I'm 32 and never heard of eSports until this thread.
Lastly, consider this: Twitch is selling for $1 Billion dollars. The average value of a single(of 32) NFL team is more than that and television networks are paying the NFL several billion each year to broadcast games.
I upvoted you, but I'm guessing people are objecting to your attempting to "be a spokesperson for the late twenties crowd", when I think your case is exceptional. I'm mid-almost-late twenties and I've never heard of "watching e-sports" or twitch.com until this thread. I've seen speedruns of half-life on youtube and such, but I had no idea people actually seemingly stream live video game competitions. I have a wide circle of friends in their twenties and thirties, and I've never heard of e-sports.
I agree though, that live sports are mostly watched at bars by friends in my age range. I only have DirecTV because it's "free" (included in hoa fees), but I still almost never watch "live" tv. I just watch DVRed shows instead of on Hulu now. Sports, especially NFL, are still huge as I can see by my facebook feed during big games or the draft.
Heck, I didn't know what a touch down was a few years ago, but sports are so popular among mainstream (ie: non techies) I had to learn enough to pretend to be interested to fit in socially, and eventually I started actually enjoying watching and following the local teams. I suspect there may be a bit of an echo chamber in some communities that don't care about sports, but I'd wager the among the majority they are still very popular.
I downvoted you not for the opinion (which I do happen to disagree with) but because you're making the mistake of taking your own anecdote and assuming it implies everyone is like you.
Among me and my friends, nobody likes rap music, ice hockey or nightclubs, doesn't those 3 things aren't incredibly popular among many people.
It's probably because you're 30 and watch esports. I didn't downvote you, though. Most of the people I know who own houses stay home to watch games but that's mostly due to the fact that they've had to move out of the urban areas to purchase.
The downvotes are unwarranted, but my guess is: it seems like you're claiming that no one in your cohort watches sports based on your anectdata. A claim which is likely out of touch with reality. I upvoted to hopefully even out your score.
ESports are MUCH more interesting for at-home watching.