You would be forgiven for not thinking that there is a whole industry around people watching other people play computer games. Although this previously niche trend has been around since the early 90s, it has now developed into a multi-billion dollar industry. In fact, the very first official video game competition was held in 1972 at Stanford University for a game called Space War.
Since then, it never really took off, and then in the early 90s, amid the fierce console wars of that time between Saga and Nintendo, there was a Blockbuster World Video Game Championship hosted that reignited the idea of seeing video game players battle it out among each other whilst a crowd looks on.
As you can imagine, when there is any competitive sport out there, sports betting is not far behind, and Esports soon gave a whole new gambling opportunity to sports betters. There are now dedicated websites that not only host sports betting but Esports events as well.
We have surely come a long way, and since the advent of the internet, the concept has grown immensely as fans and enthusiasts log in from all over the world to watch their favourite players battle it out.
Say Hello to Esports
Fast forward to the 2020s, and Esports is now a fully-fledged multi-billion dollar industry. Just as in normal sports, you have different leagues, divisions and teams for a variety of games. According to recent data, the game League of Legends is the most popular Esport game at the moment. The game publishers typically run the tournaments, and as the battles build up to a grand tournament final, entire stadiums can be sold out on one of these events. At a League of Legends final, as many as 100 million viewers from all over the world streamed the live event.
Just as with normal sports, Esports soon became a big betting opportunity in the gambling world. In the past few years, Esports has become a normal betting option under sports betting. Some of the top and most trusted betting sites with the best odds can be found at top-betting-sites.co.uk, specializing in Esports and covering all the major events.
The landscape for big TV networks and major brands is quickly changing and adapting to the new environment. Esports are now being associated with major brands like ESPN and Microsoft, as well as other major brands.
The website that also helped catapult Esports was the streaming site Twitch. Gamers would stream their live games on the site, and people from all over the world would tune in and watch them as they battle it out in tournaments. This allowed more fans to come into the space and allowed games to become more popular, further growing the scene. It is through Twitch that Riot games were able to create a network of millions of viewers without needing to rent time on a cable network. This changed the entire scene, and Twitch became an integral part of bringing Esports into the limelight. With Esports leagues being formed and games being Streamed on Twitch, it gave gaming companies the opportunity to launch a game as a platform. Players now support and play the games for much longer as there is now an audience, instead of game users jumping from one title to the next.
Follow the Money
A boom of traditional sports team owners is now investing in Esports teams and leagues. Take, for example, Robert Craft. The New England Patriots, a pro-American football team, is now the new proud owner of the Overwatch League. The list goes on of current football team owners buying up Esports teams and leagues as it currently has a very low entry cost for them.
Things won’t stay that way for long as this industry is sharply on the rise, and viewership is increasing dramatically. Even Netflix mentioned that they are competing more with Fortnite than with HBO. According to Google, teenagers are more influenced by what they stream on the internet than by what they see in movies and TV shows.
So watch out for this new industry that is on the rise, as it can soon cast a shadow over many existing industries.