Esports in 2019are experiencing a period of remarkable growth due to large investments and a lot of opportunity for earning money on eSports. Most agree that the first real video game competition took place at Stanford University on October 19, 1972. The game they competed in was Spacewar, a combat game allowing people to compete against each other on a space battlefield. The winner of this competition was Bruce Baumgart. His price was a one-year subscription to the Rolling Stone magazine.
With the rise of Twitch and other online streaming platforms, eSports popularity exploded as more people were able to enjoy watching the tournaments from the comfort of their home. Because of this more and more companies all over the world got interested is sponsoring eSports events. This financial injection caused these tournaments to grow even bigger in size and the eSports market to start expanding rapidly.
Current reports predict that the revenue of eSports in 2019 will be as high as $1.1 billion. This will be an increase of 27% compared to last year’s revenues. Another interesting factor is that experts believe there is no sign that the growth is going to stop any time soon, they also expect the industry to be worth up to $1.8 billion in 2022.
Most of the revenue in this industry comes from brand investment because a lot of companies understand the current and future potential of eSports. These include media rights, sponsorship and advertising deals.
Audiences interested in eSports are growing as well. A report form 2017 claims that it was as big as 335 million. To put that into perspective, the whole population of the US is around 327 million. Another important fact is that the audience is very young, engaged and enthusiastic. They are also getting more and more educated on the topic of eSports so they make for great candidates for advertisement companies.
The biggest audience for this form of entertainment comes from China. People from this country have shown great enthusiasm when it comes to eSports and even the Chinese government seems to be very interested in eSports. They have been signing many deals and partnerships with many eSports related companies. Also, many “eSports towns” have been popping up in China like the one in Hangzhou that is of the size of 68 football fields.
When it comes to eSports disciplines, the top places are secured by League of Legends, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and Dota 2. All of these games generate a lot of excitement and hype whenever there is a tournament and because of that and their very competitive nature, they have been at the top place for many years already.
Looking at all of this it is easy to say that eSports are here to stay and that the year 2019 will be a great one for the business. Their potential is great and with so much hype generated by the changes, they are making to the gaming and entertainment industry, their future also seems to be very bright. Who knows, we might even watch the eOlympics in a few years.