E-sports is a market that is growing steadily today, this market is expected to grow by 25% every year until 2025, a crazy explosion. The name may not be familiar to everyone, so to remind you, E-sport defines video game competitions at a professional level, but what does E-sport encompass and what are its sources of revenue ?
E-sport arrived in the 1980s with the appearance of the first video games but then it became more democratic in the 2000s with the first offline competitions organised, and it is from the 2010s onwards that this industry has exploded in the eyes of the general public.
E-sport encompasses all video game competitions, but it is divided by each video game, we can mention the biggest franchises like League of Legends, Dota or Counter-Strike. These are the historical games of E-sport, but as said before it is a growing market, so like any profitable market there is a threat of new entrants, this is the case with Fortnite which arrived in Esport in 2019 and has established itself as a stable franchise in the world of E-sport. The graph below shows the most influential video games in the world of E-sports in 2019.
This industry has the same basis as sport at a professional level with players in teams and contracts, performance bonuses, fixed salaries… Each game as well as each sport has different ways of operating but to simplify things, most games follow the model of football with divisions and world championships at the end of the year, of course there are exceptions like Counter-Strike.
This market is extremely profitable economically and represents a major industry in the entertainment market, as the following key figures show :
– 950 million dollars in revenue per year (forecast 1.6 billion in 2023)
– Nearly 500 million Internet users are interested in eSports worldwide
– 445%: the growth of this business over the last 5 years
– According to the Syndicat des éditeurs de logiciels de loisirs (SELL), 48% of players are women
– The League of Legends World Championship is the most watched event on Twitch and Youtube with 105 million hours viewed
– Jesse Vainikka, the highest paid e-sport player in the world, earned $3.16 million in 2019
– In France, more than 7.8 million players over 15 years old watch and participate in E-sport competitions
We can see that it is a market that is attracting more and more people, especially a younger and younger audience, with a parity globally respected. For sure this industry will be a major actor of the entertainment of the new generation, we can thus ask ourselves the question, will E-sport in the next years be as popular as sport or even more popular ?
SOURCES:
https://www.win-sport-school.com/nice/actualite/le-esport-une-industrie-en-pleine-croissance
E-sports is a rapidly growing industry with a lot of potential. I think it has the potential to be even more popular than traditional sports, especially among younger audiences. It’s already a major player in the entertainment industry and I think it will only continue to grow in popularity.
E-sport is indeed growing year after year and I can notice this based on the viewership of e-sports tournaments I use to watch. Who knows maybe one day it can overcome a really sport in terms of popularity.