Events, occasions on which people gather for a particular purpose, represent a well-established tourism-based distribution channel. Given recent technological advances, virtual tourism events offer a growing platform. As a particular virtual tourism event subtype, e-sports gaming events are online sports-based video-gaming competitions. During COVID-19, the number of e-sports game players and -spectators globally has grown, particularly through lockdown. However, despite this growth, literature-based insight into player- and spectator engagement with e-sports gaming events and their ensuing co-creation lags behind, revealing an important research gap, as explored in this chapter. Based on this gap, we develop a social presence theory-informed model that depicts the effect of e-sports gaming event-perceived intimacy, immediacy, nonverbal communication, and efficiency on player- and spectator engagement and its ensuing impact on e-sports event-perceived co-creation during the pandemic. We conclude with an overview of implications that arise from our work.