Many a child has been told they’d never get anywhere just sitting around playing video games. Well, those parents shouldn’t be so sure. In recent years, few live events have seen quite the type of boisterous rise as the new phenomenon of Esports. The growing popularity of streaming platforms and advancements in technology have culminated in the formation of teams, audiences, and whole new leagues. We’ll be giving you the scoop on this astounding development in our article today.
Origins of Esports
What started out as pong, then arcade games, then multiplayer games at home with friends have now laid the foundation for competitive gaming. These types of games were immensely popular since they were first sold. As LANs grew more popular and the Internet grew more accessible, people started playing against each other online.
The technology has been so versatile, that now people are able to be online on:
video poker
traditional sports like IPL 2025 cricket
eSports like League of Legends
slots
Video gaming was so immense that people didn’t even need to play them – just watching them ended up being fun enough, just as people enjoy watching sports. Nowhere else was this more vividly illustrated as in the rise of Pewdiepie’s YouTube channel, who made a name for himself simply by videorecording himself playing different video games.
Foundational Esports tournaments
Popular Esports events go all the way back to the 1990s. The 1997 Red Annihilation tournament for Quake is often cited as one of the first major esports tournaments. Another big catalyst was StarCraft: Brood War tournaments in the same decade. Competitive leagues then became widespread in the 2000s such as The Electronic Sports World Cup and the World Cyber Games.
Emerging as some of the biggest Esports games have been:
Counter-Strike,
Warcraft III
Dota
League of Legends
Fortnite
Mobile Legends
The Live Esports Event Experience
For a variety of reasons, eSports has now evolved to become a multi-billion-dollar industry. This has been made possible by several important catalysts.
Arena-filled events
Live events with dramatic presentations in the same style of traditional sports featuring bleachers filled with spectators has added intensity, enthusiasm, and excitement to these events , as their cornerstone. People not only shriek in the bleachers but watch it from home.
These venues host tens of thousands of attendees on many occasions and live streams can reach millions of people. The competitors compete as teams which represent particular cities and regions. Las Vegas and Arlington, Texas even have their own dedicated arenas for Esports events with the necessary facilities equipped.
Teams
These squads practice intensely to refine their skills, strategize, and gel together better. Many of these players are celebrities in their own right. Some of the famous ones are Cloud9, Team Liquid, and T1.
Sponsorships
These have played an indispensable role, provided by companies across all kinds of industries.
Sponsors include:
tech companies like Intel
clothing producers like Nike
Red Bull
Coca Cola
telecom companies
celebrities
media companies
traditional sports teams
These not only help sustain teams and events – they also serve as a powerful marketing tool for brands targeting a younger, tech-savvy audience. Twitch and YouTube have become vital partners for streaming tournaments. Other brands have even gone as far as to develop co-branded merchandise.
Technological advancements driving esports
Very recently, the advent of cloud gaming has rendered gambling as well as Esports gaming and viewership far more accessible. In many regions of the world, the smartphone has not yet penetrated, and on top of that, in the past, a lot of players’ choices have been severely limited simply by their device’s performance. Games demand a lot from laptops, cell phones, and tablets.
Cloud gaming is now changing all of that. What gaming companies are doing now is handling the processing of video games on their own clouds, requiring users’ devices to only have to handle the streaming. As a result, there is no lagging caused by fellow players, no accidental glitches shutting down game consoles, or device limitations. In fact, people can even game simply on their smart TVs, eliminating the need to buy a console or computer. All they have to do now is ensure their Internet is robust. 5G is currently sweeping the globe as we speak.
Revenue opportunities
On one hand, companies are competing for the right to advertise with them. Media companies highly covet deals to host these events on their channels, like ESPN, TBH, and ABC. This is huge news, since when it comes to the MLB, NFL, NBA, and NHL, their main revenue source is television commercials. TV channels, now facing intense competition from online media, highly value the interest garnered from events that have to be viewed live, since that’s the format in which television is consumed.
Microtransactions
Many competitive games offer in-game purchases where players can buy cosmetic items, skins, and other features. Games like Fortnite and Counter-Strike generate a lot of money this way, a portion of which is then allocated to help competitive Esports organizations fund their operations. This revenue model has succeeded with flying colors.
Franchises
Also in line with traditional sports, many Esports games have seen franchises arise as well, with teams not buying into leagues for a guaranteed place in tournaments. Overwatch League and Call of Duty League are a couple examples of these. Dallas Fuel and Atlanta FaZe have invested in creating regional teams. With this of course come a lot of opportunities for generating more money.
Regional popularity
China’s infrastructure has long been a blessing for its tremendous growth with robust online platforms like Tencent. Since 2019, it has been the largest eSports market in the world valued at over 14 billion dollars and teams like Invictus Gaming and EDward Gaming seeing a lot of success on the global stage. Though Japan is famous for many of the wildly popular video games it produces, it has faced regulatory challenges. The sport still flourishes there nevertheless. Meanwhile, South Korea is considered the actual birthplace of Egaming.
The West
Sweden, France, and Germany are the biggest hubs for European Egaming producing some fiercely competitive players and teams. Ninjas in Pyjjamas and Alliance. Shooters and FIFA-related games are most popular there. In the United States, the Overwatch League, League of Legends Championship Series, and the Call of Duty League have dominated.
Spreading popularity
Though countries like South Korea, China, and the United States have long occupied a seat at the forefront of this global phenomenon, many other regions are rapidly catching up and contributing to its expansion. India is seeing a rapid rise in mobile Esports like in PUBG Mobile and Free Fire. In Latin America, Brazil, Mexico, and Argentina are leading the charge with League of Legends a big hit there as well. UAE and Saudi Arabia have made major investments to carve ouut dominant roles too.
The future
Just as is what springboarded its original rise, technology continues to evolve further and Esports will consequently continue to grow more popular the more advancements that are achieved The market is very far from reaching a cap. There is also the exciting prospect of virtual and augmented reality. These industries are already worth tens of billions of dollars and thus, that will completely redefine what it’s like to both play in and witness live Esports events.
The Metaverse will even allow these fans to walk around and interact. People in this virtual world even enjoy buying NFTs of team merchandise that’s not even physically real. These can be limited edition virtual flags, skins, outfits, tickets, tournament invites, and literally any other types of collectibles, which are then frequently resold on secondary markets.
