Move over NBA and NFL—there’s a new business in town. Today, the eSports industry is on the rise to billions, with an expected growing rate of 30% over the next five years and waves of investors jumping on the bandwagon. Rapidly evolving, eSports generally refer to professional gaming and are quickly becoming “one of the most watched and passionately followed global sports categories amongst younger audiences,” according to international entertainment company MTG’s CEO Madsen Lindemmans. The business has $612 million in global revenue today, with approximately 134 million viewers worldwide. ESports are slowly becoming accepted as a legitimate sport, with MTG acquiring the Electronic Sports League, the largest eSports organization in the world. According to Skillz CEO Andrew Paradise, “ESports are well on their way not just to legitimacy, but to true sports legitimacy.”
This global phenomenon does not just stop at numbers, however, as there is a number of outlets spreading the business by the second. Take the Evolution Championship Series, for example. EVO is an annual esports tournament solely for fighting games, with contestants traveling from different parts of the world to attend and participate. EVO 2015 recently passed (July 17-19), with one of its tournaments, Super Smash Bros. Melee, reaching their second highest total peak viewers. Another gamer favorite are the ESPN-style League of Legends tournaments hosted by Twitch, a popular online streaming site. Most tournaments include analysts, commentators and giant touchscreen game-review boards—just like any other traditional major league sport. According to eSports fanatic Jessica Conditt, “there is no reason to write off eSports for being “childish” when our most beloved sports involve chasing, throwing and hitting balls of various sizes.”
With the industry expanding, the next big thing with eSports is unpredictable; we can only expect the business to become stronger with its rapidly growing community. Startups like plays.tv (coincidentally created by the world’s first professional gamer and partnered with ESL) will mostly rise within these next couple of months, shedding light to these upcoming generations of avid gamers and spectators.
