Understanding the Rise of E-Sports

Esports is rapidly growing to become one of the world’s most popular, and newest, trends in the sporting world. When you’re pulling in viewing figures of 430 million in 2020, with projections to touch almost half a billion in 2022, you must be doing something right. 

One of the things that has led to esports’ meteoric rise is its universal accessibility. With the barrier to entry being little more than a mobile phone or laptop and an internet connection, you’re hard-pressed to find a more convenient concept for pulling in fans of any number of sports that can translate to the esports concept in a short amount of time. 

Video games used to be about recreation, competition, and a bit of fun. With the dawn of the esports industry and the billions of dollars that are funneled into it every year, it seems they’ve evolved into something much, much bigger than that. 

Up To Chance 

Alongside esports, as with any sport, commercialization has been key to building its profile. This is dominantly occurred through the fun of recreational betting, placing stakes on tournaments and live streams, or the donation functions on players’ live streams. For publishers, esports is effective marketing for their titles. Anyone who can create, even free-to-play games like Call Of Duty: Warzone, has the chance to make serious income off of microtransactions in-game, for example.

In terms of the structure of betting on tournament outcomes and single match wins, esports aligns closely to traditional sports betting structure with most major platforms offering the standard match winner or match win bets, interchangeably referred to as moneyline bets, head-to-head or straight bets. Fans can even use in-game betting for esports events, which further commercialises the sport for a wider, less-familiar audience. Some of the best platforms for esports betting are included in a recent win.gg review of esports betting sites like several well-established names in betting who are jumping at the chance to appeal to a new, growing audience. Well-known sites like these, and their embracing of esports as a legitimate sport have helped many gamblers to access esports without a significant learning curve to partake. 

The Tournaments

A major element of esports’ appeal is the large-scale events that have begun popping up around the industry, allowing the sport to flourish in physical settings and place itself alongside other more traditional sporting events in the process.  

In Germany, ESL ONE has carved out a monopoly on CS:GO tournaments. Pulling in roughly 15,000 fans per year, they host tournaments for over 50 different game titles but routinely earn their biggest audiences with esports bread-and-butter classics like CS:GO and DOTA. As reported in Owayo.com’s reporting on the biggest esports tournaments today, prize money is now reaching millions of dollars. Events like ESL ONE, ESL Intel Extreme Masters, or League of Legends Championship Series are the dimension of esports that have rapidly brought the industry into the mainstream, tangible to audiences and sponsors as a genuine, stadium-filler at venues around the world. 

The Pull Of The Players

Like the fans, esports has thousands of talented players to thank for part of its success. Many of these teams are building highly dedicated fanbases through Twitch streaming and youtube highlight reels, which, when combined with their considerable earnings in tournaments has made professional gaming a desirable, realistic job and potentially lucrative route for gamers. The highest earners include the likes of Team Liquid (winners of a remarkable 2351 tournaments!), FaZe Clan, and OG, who rank among the highest in the esportsearnings.com’s list of most successful teams. 

Groups like these earn big money from wins and sponsorships, but also provide sizable social followings that make esports increasingly human and connected to the fanbase that enables its path to the mainstream.