Breaking the traditional definition of sports, which earlier involved a set of physical activities bound by rules and regulations, Electronic sports adds online competitive sports as well to that definition. Popular eSports like League of Legend, CS:GO, PUBG are multiplayer video games that are played competitively in front of millions of spectators with billions more watching them online. 

The Lure of eSports 

The world of eSports does not involve a playing ground or even a ball and still, the industry is witnessing tremendous growth. The digital culture has made that happen, pulling in significant sponsors along with spectators to give it a more professional outlook. We also have professional leagues coming up in the domain that are sport-specific. 

Esports has seen a great boom worldwide, in 2016 alone the League of Legends World Championship final had hit 43 million viewers. Tournaments also have huge cash prizes of about $1 million which does not even include sponsorship and appearance fees the pro players earn each year. If we look at the list of highest-paid esports players we have Denmark’s Johan “N0tail” Sun

0+11dstein who tops that list with $6.97 million, he has earned so far in his eSports gaming career.

The numbers speak for themselves

Last year the eSports market generated a revenue of 950 million U.S. dollars worldwide. Even while the world was in the grips of the pandemic. Now in the recovery mode, the games are being held in person once more rather than the online format it switched to earlier. The expectation is by 2023 the eSports market will be worth over 1.6 billion U.S. dollars, taking into account the robust betting industry as well as the tournament's prize pools. Sponsorship has also been a predominant part of the sport, bringing in 584 million U.S. dollars in 2020. While many still do not consider it a sport per se it has nonetheless contributed to the economic growth and would continue to do in the future as well. 

Viewership of the sports has seen a steady increase over time, if we look at the 2018 numbers, eSports viewers invested 17.9 million hours watching the games. For those who are not familiar with the esports world, Dota 2 is one of the most popular games and is followed by League of Legends and Counter Strike: Global Offensive in that order. 

Comparing apples and oranges

While traditional sports are quite popular all over the world, owing to their rich history. It would be unjustified to compare them to eSports which is still at a budding stage. Esports still face stiff competition from other sports categories. The only ground we can compare them all is prize money. Taking the popular sports first, the NBA has a prize pool of $13 million, next comes Golf Masters with $11 million and the Confederations Cup which offers $20 million. Surprisingly, eSports offers a prize almost double that of the NBA with $24.7 million. And even traditional sports organizers have realized the potential of eSports and have come up with NBA2K, eWorld Cup, and FIFA eWorld Cup Champion to foray into that category.

Esports even piqued the interest of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), which has accepted the rapid growth of the eSports industry and released a statement which states that competitive esports comes under the gambit of sporting activity. While there is no physical activity involved the players still put in a lot of time and train themselves just like an athlete would in traditional sports.

Even broadcasters, investors have realized that eSports can no longer be contained and it is a train you would have to board sometime. eSports events are being broadcasted live after several players partnered up with the organizers. Sports personalities like New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, Shaquille O’Neal, and Alex Rodriguez have invested in esports teams. In 2020, Guild Esports which is co-owned by soccer star David Beckham completed its public market flotation and has a market cap of €41.2 million ($52.3 million). Cloud9 raised $25 million and in the list of investors, Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian is also present. Investors are thus pooling in money hoping for more tremendous future growth of the esports industry.

If we look at the regional participation, North America enjoys the highest revenue share with 39% in 2019. There is a specific North American League of Legends Championship Series (NA LCS). Though the Asia Pacific region is not far off and could even overtake America one day. China considers eSports an official sport and said so in 2003. South Korea is providing the necessary infrastructure and support to nurture the industry as well. 

Looking at the humongous possibilities of growth in the industry it is clear that an investment in the eSports marketplace would pay for itself in the future. Broadcasters, fantasy sports developers, and App developers too want to hop on the bandwagon and can do so by partnering with Data Sports Group. Their unrivaled services in the eSports category would be an investment too. They are one of the best sports data providers out there and have the right esports content for you. Get access to data from all the leading tournaments with live scores and in-depth eSports statistics that would boost the engagement of your site, app or fantasy.