By 2020, it is anticipated that Esports will earn $1 billion worldwide income and draw 600 million spectators in arenas and online, quadrupling the current number. Last year’s League of Legends world final, when spectators gathered live and in front of screens to see players participate in a fantasy battle video game.
The prize pool of this event is over $5 million. It gathers views from a total of 14.7 million people.
On the surface, this creates a fantastic chance for companies to engage with an active, young, enthusiastic, and expanding audience. Nonetheless, the category is already quite crowded and has a negative side.
Do Esports redefine the term sport?
Digital culture is altering the meaning of sport, and young people are rethinking what it means to “play sport.” The world of Esports consists of competitive, tournament-based video gaming with professional leagues, massive spectatorship, and big sponsors.
For businesses seeking to collaborate with Esports teams, tournaments, and organizations, the fact that the sector transcends borders, ages, and often genders is a major selling point. It is independent of TV firms purchasing rights and choosing when, when, and how to broadcast content. It strives to unite various communities that feel underrepresented by traditional sports.
And it’s an industry experiencing extraordinary transformation, which presents opportunities for businesses to develop new consumer relationships and relevance.
The selling of content rights to broadcasters; direct payments from live streaming services — some live events can attract tens of millions of online spectators; and advertising earnings initially from the gaming sector, but ultimately from broader product placement.
Esports is the first significant worldwide entertainment movement to originate in Asia rather than the West. It was mostly pioneered in South Korea, and China now supplies the largest audience. Pro players and spectators are primarily in their teens and early twenties, making them appealing to advertising and sponsors.Because of these players and spectators, the Esports sector is projected to reach $1.5 billion by 2023. Dota 2 and CS Go are now the two highest-paid Esports games.
Nielsen reports that more than 600 Esports sponsorship deals have been signed since the start of 2016. According to the authors of the research, the fastest-growing revenue stream is media rights, which they anticipate will earn $340 million by 2020.
How quickly is Esports expanding?
Recent research by the Milken Institute estimates that professional Esports generated over $660 million in 2017 and will surpass $1 billion by the end of 2019. Currently, 17 institutions provide competitive gamers with athletic scholarships.
Many predict this will result in a seismic shift in media distribution, IP monetization, and advertising. Streamed tournaments with organized leagues and professional players whose efforts can be observed from anywhere.
Live events in large offline sports venues contribute to the Esports business’s emergence as the next major spectator sport. Twitch, the largest US live streaming platform, lets viewers watch “streamers” play video games.
Amazon acquired Twitch for about $1 billion in 2014. However, some business professionals questioned the acquisition.
Today, Twitch has approximately 5 million active viewers who spend an average of 106 minutes each day watching live gaming. It has more compared to prime-time cable television networks such as CNN.
