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The lights go down, the sold-out arena goes wild and the players enter. Pleasantries are exchanged, the players warm-up and then we’re underway. Except this time, the 20,000-strong audience are joined by another two million viewers online, and they’re all watching a screen. The players, it turns out, are controlling the action via a PlayStation. The Esports phenomenon is here and plans on going nowhere.
It is estimated that the Esports industry is worth around $1.5 billion, a third of the size of the NBA and comparable to France’s Ligue 1 – home to a certain Lionel Messi. The days of video games being confined to dark bedrooms are long gone – there is serious money to be made and careers to be forged. The International Olympic Committee are giving it serious thought for future Olympiads, and superstars like Gareth Bale and David Beckham now own their own Esports teams.
Around 400 million viewers a year watch their favourite e-athletes play games such as Fortnite and League of Legends through streaming platforms like Twitch and You Tube. Incredibly, the US Government had to listen to campaigners in 2013 and recognise League of Legends players as professional athletes.
But it was perhaps Fortnite that propelled the industry to new heights just a few years ago. During the first eight months of its release, around 40 million people logged into Twitch each month to play the game, and over 4,500 channels streamed the action – an average of 140,000 people were watching the game and the players at any given time. The game hit the headlines in March 2018 when its star player, an American called Ninja, played musician Drake in a stream that set a Twitch record for non-tournament play with 635,000 viewers – nearly double the previous high.
For advertisers, the Esports explosion has opened up a whole new, and younger, audience who now no longer consume traditional media or are interested in one-time traditional sports. Despite this audience being sceptical to traditional advertising, their thirst for merchandise and branded items remains as rich as football or American sports. There were over 600 brand sponsorships of Esports events in 2017, with huge amounts of revenue coming from merchandise, tickets, and, yes, betting. Electronic Arts reported in 2017 that 18 million players engaged in competitive gaming on its FIFA 18 and Madden NFL 18 titles, up a huge 75% on the previous year.
Elite players are signed to publishers on six-figure salaries to tour the world and compete for prizes in the millions. In fact, prize funds for major Esports tournaments is comparable to some of the leading ‘real’ sports tournaments. In 2017, The Masters, one of the most prestigious events on the golfing calendar, had a prize pot of $13 million. Similarly, the NBA Championships had a prize fund of $13 million. The International, an annual eSports competition organised by the Valve Corporation, had a fund of over $24 million.
