Esports are more than just a new craze, it seems.

Every week, it feels like a new company is investing, or a new big name is giving its endorsement. It shows the power of the product, but it also makes sense: billions of people all over the world sit in front of their TVs and laptops to watch sport and unwind, to escape their lives for a few hours – so long as you’re sitting on your sofa watching football, why not sit on your sofa and watch two very talented individuals play FIFA 17?

And over the past year or so, Premier League football clubs, as well as – most notably – VFL Wolfsburg of the German Bundesliga have invested in employing dedicated esports players. It’s a growing sector of the digital sport industry, and it makes sense to get involved.

And this week, according to German news outlet Wirtschafts Woche (Via Split Push), eight German clubs – Bayern Munich, Borussia Mönchengladbach, SV Hamburg, Werder Bremen, FC Ingolstadt, Bayer Leverkusen, FC Cologne, and Hertha Berlin – are all considering their options when it comes to getting into esports.

With the new title in the EA Sports FIFA series released this week, it feels like esports and football is a partnership that will only grow over the coming months.

The obvious step for football clubs, though, is clearly one which involves getting in on the action with footballing titles such as FIFA, rather than other sides of the esports sector. League of Legends, for all its popularity and growth, is hardly an obvious bedfellow for football clubs, even though Schalke 04 seem to be buying into the esports growth with full throttle vigour!

Ivern – @LeagueOfLegends' newest Champion was revealed yesterday!

What are your thoughts on the Green Father? #RengarTime pic.twitter.com/FM2crzf8hi

— Schalke04 Esports (@S04Esports) September 21, 2016

For the moment, it does look as though esports is getting its biggest hit in Germany, or at least when it comes to the endorsements of actual sporting institutions, but you get the feeling it’s only a matter of time before the Premier League gets involved.

With FIFA 17, the increasingly-popular title gets it latest installment, and with each passing year, the game only gets better and better. It becomes increasingly a game of skill, whilst tactics and formations matter more than they used to. The rise of esports, then, makes sense in that sort of environment. Watching two people play FIFA 17 may seem like choosing to be left out of a party and watch from the outside. But the reality is you’re probably going to be watching two people with a high level of skill and dedication to what they do.

It seems like it will only be a matter of time before esports becomes more and more mainstream. As more and more football teams employ esports players, it’s very likely that their fans will respond by supporting them too. It’s more than just a craze, then. It could be here to stay.