Since the rise of COVID-19 in March, people have been working from home, events have been postponed or canceled and sports leagues are on break. Sports are many people’s main form of entertainment, be it on tv or actually playing the sport. However, one type of sport has been thriving during the last couple of months, and that is esports. Unlike regular sports, esports can be run completely online and from home, COVID-19 has not put a stop to competition. I’ll mostly be talking about the League of Legends European Championship and the League of Legends Championship Series (North America), the LEC and LCS respectively. Both of these leagues have been producing the broadcast and playing the matches remotely since March. Production is all done from home, broadcast talent is mostly casting from home and the players have been competing from their homes or their team’s facilities. This is obviously not ideal and people are concerned about competitive integrity, but it has been going well, everything considered.
Fans are still able to enjoy the competition, while many other forms of entertainment have been put to a stop, and viewership has seen a significant increase compared to last year. The LCS has seen a 25% increase in viewership this summer compared to last year, surpassing the peak viewership record multiple times and the 2020 Summer Finals reached 545.571 peak viewers. The LEC managed to increase the total hours watched by 85% compared to the summer season of 2019, with over 40 million hours watched. The final even reached a peak of 952.339 viewers, which was a 16,7% increase from last year. Esports viewership has been increasing significantly over the last decade, so not everything can be attributed to COVID-19. However, with so many sports and other forms of entertainment disappearing due to corona, people must be looking for other forms of entertainment, and esports is one of them.
Even though esports has seen significant growth, it has not really entered the mainstream in the west, unlike countries like China and South Korea. I believe that many people do not realize the pace at which this industry is growing in terms of viewership and revenue. For example, the esports audience has grown from 335 million in 2017 to 454 million in 2019 and it is expected to grow even further to 646 million in 2023. Furthermore, esports generated more than 1 billion dollars in revenue in 2019, and expectations for 2022 are somewhere around 1.5 to 2 billion dollars.
Most of this revenue is generated through advertising and sponsorships, 69% to be precise. Esports is an incredibly attractive market for many brands due to the characteristics of its viewers, most of them are between 18-35 years old, which is the opposite of many traditional sports. To put it in perspective, the LCS is the 3rd biggest sports league in the USA for 18-34 year-olds, only behind the NFL and NBA. There are many prominent brands that are already sponsoring the esports leagues and teams. To name a few; Mastercard, Honda, Mercedes, Red Bull, Logitech, Bose, and Dell through their Alienware gaming hardware.
As a fan myself, I’m incredibly excited to see where esports is heading. Every year is more impressive than the one before, and managing to keep it all running during COVID-19 shows incredible resilience and professionalism for such a young industry. The tenth League of Legends World Championship is taking place in Shanghai this year and will last from the end of September all the way through October. COVID-19 has ruined many of the big plans that were made for the 10th anniversary, but thanks to Riot Games, Tencent, and the Chinese government the tournament can still take place. If you are interested in League of Legends, or esports in general, then this would be a great place to start and see what esports is all about.
References:
Nexus.leagueoflegends.com. 2019. 2019 LCS Year In Review. [online] Available at: [Accessed 19 September 2020].
Guerrero, A., 2020. 2020 LEC Summer Viewership Update. [online] Lolesports.com. Available at: [Accessed 19 September 2020].
Escharts.com. 2020. LCS Summer 2020 Detailed Viewers Stats. [online] Available at: [Accessed 19 September 2020].
Murray, T., 2020. LCS Summer Split Sees 25% Viewership Increase Year-Over-Year Ahead Of Finals Weekend. [online] The Esports Observer. Available at: [Accessed 19 September 2020].
Reyes, M., 2019. Esports Ecosystem Report 2020: The Key Industry Players And Trends Growing The Esports Market Which Is On Track To Surpass $1.5B By 2023. [online] Business Insider. Available at: [Accessed 19 September 2020].
Interesting article! I agree that it is very exciting to see this industry growing every year. Especially with an industry that is so young and unfamiliar to many people, it is really proving to be a full-fledged entertainment branch.
It cannot be questioned that the esports industry has flourished this year as many events could be continued as planned. While you could argue that the quality of gameplay perhaps dropped slightly due to games being played online vs. LAN, this will only have had a negligible effect on overall viewership. The increase in viewership is a great achievement and will definitely help the industry going forward. In that sense, esports really has received several benefits from the pandemic.
However, we cannot forget that esports has, like most other industries, also experienced its fair few blowbacks from covid-19. Just like many other sports, a large source of income is the live events organized every year with huge attendance numbers. ESL reported 174.000 attendants alone at their Katowice event last year. Losing those attendants in addition to many corporate partners has caused millions of lost revenues for the industry.
Additionally, it will be interesting to see if events will be picked up again as usual when circumstances allow it. Perhaps covid-19 has, through forcing online-only events, somewhat held back the integration of esports being mainstream in Europe.
Overall, to me, another interesting question to be asked would be; has the increased viewership this year been able to offset the missed income of the many esports live events organized each year?
It has certainly provided esports with a larger platform going into the future, which can have great potential long-term results. But how many of the increase in viewership will stick around esports when the world “goes back to normal”?
https://about.eslgaming.com/blog/2019/03/esl-and-intel-welcomed-174000-fans-at-worlds-most-attended-esports-event-and-most-watched-esl-csgo-tournament-ever/