THE RISE OF E-SPORTS

The Rise Of e-sports

In recent years, the growth of the global e-sports industry has led to a surge of interest in this fledgling yet increasingly valuable business.

Indeed, in 2019, overall revenue for the industry surpassed the $1billion mark for the first time, and it is predicted to grow exponentially year on year. 

The growth of e-sports seems to have come alongside a boom in the online gambling industry, with traditional industries moving online. Indeed, casinos are offering increasingly gamified options to players as this review of Dunder Casino shows.

In this article, we will take a close look at the rise of e-sports globally and how this industry may have changed the face of sports-entertainment forever.

The Big Winners in the rise of e-sports

With the massive growth of e-sports the world over, the beneficiaries of this surge in interest have been multifold. Indeed, it is not just the professional gamers themselves seeing huge financial windfalls thanks to the growth of e-sports.

Publishers of online games such as Activision Blizzard (creators of Call of Duty and Overwatch) have seen a huge surge in revenue since the boom in global e-sports. What’s more, events companies including Eventbrite have benefitted from the rise of e-sports due to their taking a cut from each event they sell tickets for. 

Add to this the surge in popularity of gaming hardware created by companies such as NVIDIA and its clear to see that the number of winners from the rise of e-sports is rather large indeed. 

The audience behind the rise of e-sports

It’s no secret that the average attendee of an esports even is male, aged under thirty and a video game fanatic! Sponsors such as Monster Energy and Intel have gained huge traction through deals with e-sports events, with reports that advertising in the industry is now worth well over $500million per year. 

Whilst these may be endemic brands that are used in the playing of e-sports, many non-endemic brands such as Tinder and McDonalds are also making serious inroads with advertising in e-sports events all over the planet.

Many have labeled e-sports as the first truly global sports since football, with virtually every eligible country on earth counting players and fans among their population. As a result, it is widely accepted that the potential for growth in the industry is almost unlimited, especially considering that the audience is, in many cases, still extremely young.

Overall, the rise of e-sports is an exceptionally exciting development for the global economy. Not only is the industry itself worth an exceptional amount at this early stage, yet the accompanying advertisement and technological impact is also a potentially lucrative one.

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