E-Sports on The Right Track to Developing into a $1B Industry

Not even 20 years ago, e-sports consisted of some dozens of select gamers assembling in warehouses to participate for modest-at-best prizes – sans the televised events. No live-streaming or uploading of tournaments to YouTube. What’s more, there was little to no fanfare.

But nowadays, e-sports has emerged out of underground rooms and warehouses and onto chief cable networks such as ESPN and TBS and is on the brink of becoming a $1 billion industry.

During an panel discussion at CES in Las Vegas, last Thursday, Nick Allen, who is the director of e-sports operations at Twitch, gave his two cents’ worth. According the Allen, the biggest video game and e-sports streaming provider, said that the prime reason for such a sudden boom has boiled down to availability.

Prior to its successfulness, finding e-sports events was an inconvenience for fans, and only a handful of websites tracked and broadcast events, making following the sport a trying chore. Streaming apps such as Twitch, YouTube and Azubu live-stream dozens of professional tournaments, and also let fans watch and network with their favorite gamers during solo-live-streams on days without tournaments.

The incorporation of those apps into Smart TVs, streaming devices such as Roku and Apple TV, and even smartphone made finding your favorite e-sport match an easier, more accessible process, Allen explained.

And as additional e-sports play-offs end up on television transmissions like TBS’ ELeague — which broadcasts live matches of the first-person-shooter game “Counter Strike: Global Offensive” — that user-friendliness and reach will continue to increase.

But while the idea of sitting in your living room on a Friday night to watch others play video games on TV is still a foreign concept to some, the total number of viewers the biggest events receive, which can get into the tens of millions, demonstrates the yearning that exists for the industry.

So, for a business that has blossomed in such a short period, one might beg to question: “What’s next?”. Some games, like “League of Legends,” continue to grow in popularity at a rapid rate, by consuming fewer tournaments and large cash purses, which has permitted the industry to grow in its entirety.

To substantiate this theory, e-sports revenues are expected to eclipse the $1 billion mark by 2018. Some, like Allen, are concerned that the flood of brands and countless tournaments in recent years is instigating an inundation for fans. With so many tournaments, fans are having trouble tracking the importance of matches, causing some games such as “Dota 2” and “Counter-Strike: Global Offensive” to lose audiences overall recently, Allen added.

Moreover, as the industry prospers, e-sports is beginning to look more like traditional sporting leagues. Similar to NFL and other sports, you can lawfully bet on e-sports play-offs in Las Vegas. Player reimbursement have also jumped, with most of the top players easily pulling in six-figure earnings. And as those incomes escalate, discussions about player unionization and the potential need for larger monitoring bodies seen in the NBA, NHL and NFL.

Allen claimed that he would love to see the players unionize in order to ensure they get remunerated properly and are treated fairly. But as for the regulatory unit, Allen said the chances are slim. He thinks that it would be far more beneficial to industry, there are too many games, with an abundance of brands looking to control things, for there to be sufficient trust in a solitary regulatory body.

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