Forget about football, tennis or basketball, there is another form of sport booming…eSports. According to Twitch TV more than 100 million viewers watch video game play online each month, and that number keeps increasing (huffingtonpost). In the video game industry, streaming capacities have helped the rise of a new category of sporting events, professional video game competitions called eSports. It has become a million-dollar industry with millions of die-hard fans worldwide. But how big is this videogame thing really?
Let’s start with this: in October 2013, 32 million people watched the championship of Riot Games’ League of Legends on streaming services such as Twitch TV and YouTube and around 205 million people either watched or played eSports in 2014 (huffingtonpost). While eSports have long been biggest in Asia, especially gaming-frenzied South Korea, North America and Europe now claim 28 million eSports fans and they are growing by 21 percent a year (huffingtonpost). As an overall category, gaming has more YouTube followers than news, movies and education combined.
According to French sports newspaper L’Equipe, Paris Saint Germain is looking forward to invest in eSports. The French capital’s football club is in discussion with a French eSports team, Millenium, to build a partnership. Millenium has been one of the most important teams in France in the past ten years, and has participated in the most important games. It is also one of the most-visited news portals for videogames and eSports in France (Esportsobserver). This way PSG continues the trend of European soccer teams such as Schalke 04 in Germany and Besiktas in Turkey that are getting interested in eSports.
Have your parents also said that you were wasting your time playing videogames? Well, it might not have been true. In 2014 eSports event organizers have paid more than $35 million in prize money, not counting well-paid sponsorships with company such as Coca-Cola, Ford and American Express providing multimillion dollar sponsorships and organizational support to the world’s top players, many of whom earn seven-figure salaries and attract large and passionate online followers(Espn). In my opinion, eSports are well on their way not just to legitimacy in the industry, but to true sports supremacy. With hundredth of millions of hardcore gamers and thousands of global tournaments each year, video games are on their way to becoming the world’s biggest sports.
Sources:
Auxent, A. (2016, September 2). French Football Club PSG in Talks to Enter eSports. Retrieved from esportsobserver.com: http://esportsobserver.com/french-fotball-club-psg-in-talks-to-enter-esports/
Casselman, B. (2015, May 22). Retrieved from espn.com: http://www.espn.com/espn/story/_/id/13059210/esports-massive-industry-growing
Taylor, R. (2015, May 4). Rise of eSports is a Game Changer. Retrieved from huffingtonost.com: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rich-taylor/rise-of-esports-is-a-game_b_6784174.html
