E-Sports: What? When? Why?

The emergence of e-sports has certainly not gone unnoticed over recent years, with the rapidly growing gaming event now attracting millions of gamers, fans and punters. E-Sports is an organised, competitive computer gaming platform, taking place between professional players. While competitive computer gaming is not a new idea, with games such as Pong leading the way back in the 1970’s, E-Sports exploded in Asia around the turn of the century, with its popularity now spreading to Europe and America. A whole host of games are now utilised, with adoring fans watching in sold-out arena’s, as well as from the comfort of their own homes online.

Companies from varying markets are starting to realise the potential involved with E-Sports, with gamers in the UK spending over £3 billion on computer games in 2016. Winners of E-Sports competitions can take away millions in prize money, with the 2016 Dota 2 Championships offering a prize pool of over £14 million. Meanwhile, with the biggest event of last year, the League of Legends World Championship Final attracting an audience of more than 35 million worldwide, it is unsurprising that even bookmakers such as Betway are now offering betting odds on the outcome of such events. The upcoming Asia Championship on April 4th see’s the Evil Geniuses team offered as the 3.5/1 favorites (odds taken on the 24^th March).

As a result of such continued growth, an official organisation, the World eSports Association, has been set up in order to run the sport, similar to how the likes of FIFA and the NFL do in other disciplines. On top of this, the UK now has its first dedicated E-Sports channel, offering action to viewers 24 hours a day. In 2017, tournaments such as the Dream Hack Las Vegas Series and iGame are set to be bigger than ever, with Betway already having installed Danish team Astralis as early favourites with odds of 5/1 on March 2.

Football clubs are even getting involved in the action, with English Premier League side Manchester City just one of a number of clubs signing individual E-Sports players in order to represent them during tournaments. Due to the amount of money within E-Sports, such businesses see such investment as a key addition in achieving their goals.

E-Sports is also helping to break the traditional stereotypes surrounding gamers, and although it is certainly a young person’s sport, with just 28% of professional players being aged over 35, successful players are arriving from all different walks of life. This is just one of the reasons as to why advertisers see E-sports as a potential gold mine, as they look to reach out to the next generation of consumers. With the League of Legends Spring Split currently taking place, Cloud9 are among the favourites, with Betway offering odds of 8/1 on March 2.

The news has recently broken that E-Sports will generate more than £1 billion in global revenue by the year 2020, as well as almost double its audience to nearly 600 million. E-Sports generated a revenue of £400 million in 2016, with a global audience of 320 million people. Prize money of £76 million was won by teams and players last year, with the winners of the League of Legends World Championship sharing a pot of £810,000, making it the biggest E-Sports event across the board. Sponsorship is undoubtedly the biggest revenue stream in E-Sports, comfortably bringing in more than media, advertising, merchandising and ticketing. Peter Warman, from analysts Newzoo, believes that the industry needs to professionalize and set up an organized structure of governance if they are to successfully manage such growth, with a major battle between the world’s leading sportswear giants set to begin in order to get their brand on the jerseys of the biggest E-Sports teams.