Popular Esports Tournaments
The Esports Observer. Berlin, Germany About Blog The Esports Observer is the world's leading. The most popular esports tournaments The world of esports tournaments varies in popularity for a number of reasons, and some are arguably better than others. For instance, the skill level of teams involved can differ from amateur groups of friends in open tournaments, all the way up to professional organisations, turning over millions of. EVO is the shortened form of the Evolution Championship Series. It is a large tournament, in fact, the largest where esports fighting teams from all over the world gather to compete. EVO 2020 has on offer 9 supported titles which include amongst others, Street Fighter 5, Super Smash Bros Ultimate and Tekken. Overwatch World Cup. Most Popular esports tournaments for January 2021 #5 - LEC Spring 2021 The game between G2 Esports vs Mad Lions at the League of Legends European Championship.
Adam Rosen, who runs a network of college video game clubs, says the general public is wrong about video game culture. It doesn’t promote violence, kill brain cells, or lead to years without communication with females. Rather, it’s the “next big wave,” and, he says, parents should view gaming just like they view Little League, scouting, soccer, or ballet.
For nearly five years, he and Tespa, the company he co-founded, has been fighting the gaming stigma and working to prove gaming is not a waste of time or reserved for loners who live in basements. It has all the attributes and learning potential of traditional sports, he says.
“When I think about sports, it’s cultural. You grow up, you play in Little League, and progress sometimes up to college or pro teams. It’s very familial—families really come together to support it,” Rosen said. “People recognize it as a force for good, a way to better yourself, and it’s a really close community. So because of that you have this really broad cultural acceptance and celebration of sports, and I think we have a huge opportunity to build the same thing.”
The numbers and the money support him.
The market for competitive video games that pit strong (and increasingly professional) gamers against each other is exploding. It even has its own name: esports. Last year, it was a $655 million industry. This year, it’s predicted to exceed that by 38-percent and jump to $905 million. In 2019, it’s expected to hit $1.1 billion in revenue.
The big difference from traditional sports is, of course, that you are not moving your body or showing physical prowess, which was always the measure of greatness. So how did video games evolve from being viewed as a waste of time to an outlet for professional players to earn salaries upwards of six figures?
Tespa has over 220 campus chapters in the US and Canada and hosts the Tespa Collegiate Series, a group of collegiate esports competitions which have awarded over $1.29 million in scholarships through events and tournaments.
Rosen said Tespa is combating the stigma associated with gaming. He said video games should no longer be viewed as a waste of time or something you crawl up in your basement and play for hours. Instead, it should be considered an equal to traditional sports.
Rosen is excited to see esports continue to grow into an even larger market with professional and collegiate leagues across the globe.
“We’re on track for [esports] to be just as big if not bigger than traditional sports,” Rosen said. “Traditional sports have the pro leagues, but also amateur and grassroot leagues, as well as a large fanbase. We have this with esports already. As soon as people start to realize the ecosystem that already exists, more people will jump on board and viewership and players will increase. I’d say in the next five years I could absolutely see some of the more popular titles being as popular as the Buffalo Bills and Sabres.”
As the industry continues to grow, so does America’s interest in the phenomenon.
TBS’s ELEAGUE has broadcast esports on Friday nights since 2016, and fans of “League of Legends” watched 274.4 million hours of competition on the streaming website Twitch in 2017.
The average weekly viewership for NFL games during the 2017-18 season was 14.9 million viewers. With a 16-game season, viewers watched roughly 238 million hours of regular season football last year, falling short to just one videogame’s viewership, which is close to reaching 300 million annual viewers.
Like most professionals sports, esports has established leagues at the collegiate and professional level and broadcasts to hundreds of millions of viewers across the world.
Robert Morris University in Illinois created a scholarship-sponsored team for the world’s most popular esports title, “League of Legends” in 2014. In four years, a national governing body—the National Association of Collegiate Esports—has formed and includes upwards of 50 varsity programs.
In Buffalo, members of the gaming community are finding success in the esports industry.
Esports Tournament Software
Allen “FantaFiction” Hu, started playing Blizzard Entertainment’s popular video game “Heroes of the Storm” seven months ago for fun. Last spring, he and his teammates traveled from Buffalo to Los Angeles to play for over $500,000 in scholarship prize money.
Hu, a junior at the University at Buffalo, participated in “Heroes of the Dorm,” the largest collegiate esports tournament in North America, which offers full college tuition to each member of the winning team. The team, “Improbabull Victory,” made up of five UB students, lost in the finals, but highlights Buffalo’s—and the nation’s—growing interest in esports.
Hu thinks UB could benefit from creating a varsity esports program. After finishing second out of more than 300 participating teams—many from funded varsity programs—he feels confident UB could be a competitive powerhouse at the collegiate level.
“There’s enough competition out there that it makes sense for UB and other schools in the area to start investing in esports,” Hu said. “It’s not just “Heroes”, some schools have teams for four or five games, and all of the students on those teams get full-ride scholarships. It’s honestly starting to catch up to college football and basketball.”
Open Esports Tournaments
Tespa studies found over half of college students now actively identify themselves as gamers. Whether students play casually or with the hopes of making it pro, it’s evidence the stigma about video games is changing.
The University at Buffalo isn’t a Tespa chapter, but has active members who host monthly competitions on campus. Students compete against each other for prizes and in-game-credits provided by the organization. Rosen said from small on-campus events to national tournaments, he views Tespa as platform for students to meet new people who share the same hobby.
He added it’s only a matter of time before esports becomes a fundamental piece of the collegiate experience. Rosen said live esports events will continue to grow, becoming a major part of the gaming experience. He feels the level of production,
With tournaments and regular season games selling out Rosen said investing in all aspects of the esports experience is key to furthering the industry.
“Look at what we’re doing with ‘Heroes of the Dorm,’ where there’s scholarships on the line. We’re taking these students, they’re flying across the country, they’re competing and representing their universities, and I think it’s tremendously positive,” Rosen said. “When you’re an administrator or a faculty at a university that doesn’t quite get gaming or esports yet, you can’t not look at HOTD and not get it. The fans shouting from the audience with faces painted in school colors, the analysts desk, the announcers, everything we know and love about collegiate sports we see in collegiate esports.”
Rosen said at the pace the esports industry has grown since Tespa’s conception, he expects most colleges to have varsity programs in the next five years. As for Tespa, he hopes to continue using the platform to create the esports equivalent of the NCAA.
“Looking forward, I think varsity teams will be the norm, it’ll be odd if there’s a college without one,” Rosen said. “Professional leagues have been established, like with “Overwatch” which has 12 teams all across the world who participate in a regular and postseason, just like any traditional sport. I think bringing that to collegiate esports scene is accomplishable and will really help cultivate that broad acceptance found in traditional sports.”
Schools in the area are already starting to invest in esports. Daemen College became the first private institution in the Buffalo Niagara region to create an esports team as a part of their Games Club and built an esports center for students in January.
Professional teams and players from Buffalo have also played in national tournaments for games including “Hearthstone” and “Counter-Strike: Global Offensive,” and the No. 3 globally ranked “Tekken 7” player lives in Buffalo.
Many local pros practice at GameOn LAN, an internet café and gaming center located on Delaware Avenue in Kenmore, which offers players high end equipment and a professional space to practice their game. Co-owner Josh Lonczak said since opening in 2015, he’s seen esports thrive in Buffalo.
“There’s definitely a strong support for esports in Buffalo and it’s still growing,” Lonczak said. “The community’s interest and support hasn’t plateaued. We have a massive fighting game community, then you have the other side of the community they show up for “CSGO” and “Fortnite;” which just announced $100 million in prize pools for 2019.”
GameOn is currently the only LAN center in Buffalo, as others like CyberJocks have closed in recent years. Despite this, the center is getting itself and its players noticed on the global stage. The popular fighting game forum “Shoryuken” recognized the “Rumble in the Tundra” competition held at the center, prompting outsiders to view Buffalo as an esports hub, according to Lonczak.
Hu appreciates Buffalo’s gaming community, but thinks it still has a long way to go. With a target audience of young adults and millennials, Hu thinks esports needs to be marketed as something that’s relatable even to older fans.
“It’s a niche community, compared to other sports it won’t be that big,” Hu said. “Unless companies can [reach a larger audience like traditional sports,] it will only be something viewed by people that play games and enjoy them.”
Lonczak agrees the community could be bigger, but encourages people to reconsider how they view the esports industry. He feels the growth the industry has made in the past four years is remarkable, and if it continues, it will rival traditional sports in the future.”
“People are surprised when they learn about esports and how similar its become to traditional sports,” Lonczak said. “Look at Mark Cuban, he owns the Dallas Mavericks, but he also owns a professional “League of Legends” team. Video games have become a platform for people to earn an impressive salary. It’s just as hard as making it as a traditional athlete, but I think in the future, esports leagues will become the norm and I wouldn’t be surprised to see Buffalo have a professional team.”
Max Kalnitz is the senior news editor at the University at Buffalo’s student newspaper The Spectrum and can be reached at max.kalnitz@ubspectrum.com.
The eSports industry has seen tremendous growth over the years, both in terms of viewership and revenue. The increasing viewership is what mainly contributed to the revenue growth – and it's not just because those viewers are generating revenue. Seeing the potential of reaching a large and engaged audience, brands are investing in eSports marketing, both directly and indirectly. This has contributed to rapid revenue growth in the industry, only slowed down by COVID limiting large public eSports events.
eSports has also experienced growth in several other aspects, with many of them interrelated in one way or another. In this post, you will learn more about just how much the eSports industry is growing so you can understand how to leverage it.
Leverage the Growth of eSports (With the Stats Associated):
eSports Viewership is Growing
Since 2016, there has been a significant increase in eSports viewers – both occasional viewers and enthusiasts, i.e., viewers who watch it regularly. Between 2018 and 2019, there was a 12.3% increase year over year. In 2019, there were 245 million casual viewers and 198 million enthusiasts, making the total audience 443 million.
By Feb 2020, the year-over-year growth rate had slightly dropped to 11.7%, although that's still a sizable increase. In 2020, there were 272 million occasional viewers and 223 million enthusiasts. So, the total audience size grew to 496 million, almost half a billion eSports followers.
By 2023, Newzoo predicts that the annual growth rate will be approximately 10.4%. They also expect that the number of casual viewers will grow to 351 million. And that there will be 295 million eSports enthusiasts, making the total audience 646 million.
Newzoo has also released statistics highlighting the growth in the European audience for eSports. The total audience for eSports in Europe was 79 million in 2018, growing to 86 million in 2019 and 92 million in 2020.
As you can see, there has been a steady growth in eSports viewership, and the trend is likely to continue in the coming years. The increase isn't just limited to dedicated eSports fans; there also seems to be an increase in people who view it casually. This is likely a result of increasing awareness about eSports and ease of access to the internet.
Also, viewing platforms like Twitch and YouTube have seen growth in their users. That's another contributing factor to eSports audience growth. You will learn more about these factors later on in this post.
However, there is one proviso regarding expectations of future growth. The above predictions for future growth were made before COVID had such an impact on the world. Newzoo recognizes that 'the eSports audience is not smaller (meaning there's no decrease in demand), and the number of organizers is not fewer (so there's no decrease in supply).' However, this year has seen eSports events postponed and cancelled, and if this continues, it may impact future growth.
eSports Awareness is Increasing
One of the main reasons why there has been growth in eSports viewership is because more people are learning about it. There has been a tremendous rise in awareness of the eSports industry since 2015. Back then, there were slightly more than 800,000 people who had heard about it. These numbers soon changed, and by the next year, more than a billion people had learned about eSports.
These numbers continued to increase in the following years, by a few hundred thousand annually. By 2017, eSports awareness had risen to 1.28 billion, and it reached 1.43 billion by 2018. Statista doesn't appear to have continued recording these figures since then, but they predicted that by 2019, an estimated 1.57 billion people were likely to be aware of eSports.
Popular Esports Tournaments
We can, however, glean additional information on eSports awareness from Newzoo's report. They indicated that the global awareness of eSports in 2019 was actually 1.8 billion, and they expected this to rise to 2.0 billion in 2020. Newzoo expects that 530.4 million of these will be Chinese.
So what does this increase in viewership and awareness mean for brands? For the most part, it says that they have a new channel to target in their marketing mix. It also says that they have more people to reach within the eSports industry. So, eSports marketing will help them expand their reach and deliver their marketing messages through engaging channels.
The rise of Platforms Offering Live eSports Coverage
It's no surprise that more people watch eSports videos and events considering how online platforms now make watching eSports content more accessible. eSports streamers use these platforms to broadcast live coverage of events and their own gameplay. This makes it easier for fans to participate in their favorite events and engage with their preferred eSports athletes.
So, you can see an increase in the number of viewers and broadcasters on these platforms as well. Although not all the viewers and broadcasters on these platforms are relevant to the eSports industry, this increase still likely affects the industry.
Source: blog.streamlabs.com
Streamlabs made some interesting observations in their Q3 2020 report. The majority of streamers still prefer Twitch. It represents 91.1% of the market share for hours streamed, up 14.5% from Q2 2020. The reason for this significant increase was because of Microsoft's shutting down of Mixer. However, Facebook Gaming also saw an increase in market share, up 1% over the quarter to 3%. YouTube Gaming hasn't benefited much from Mixer's end, dropping 1.2% to have a market share of 5.5%.
Twitchtracker provides some interesting statistics about Twitch's progression over the years. COVID lockdowns have led to many people increasing their time on Twitch. 889 billion minutes have been watched over the last year, up from 660 billion minutes in 2019. Similarly, there are now 4.4 million monthly streamers in Twitch in 2020, compared to 3.64 million in 2019.
The platform has also seen a steady increase in the number of channels simultaneously broadcasting live. This number increased by 20% in 2019, with 49,500 average concurrent live channels. In 2020, the increase so far has been 69%, with 83,900 average concurrent live channels. So, there is a ton of activity on these platforms, signifying that eSports fans are highly active and engaged with relevant content.
People are Spending More Time Watching eSports
Audiences watched over 7.46 billion hours of content across all live-streaming platforms in Q3 2020, slightly down from Q2's 7.71 billion hours. Surprisingly, considering its fall in market share, YouTube Gaming experienced the most growth for hours watched with an increase of 156M hours from Q2 to Q3. Facebook Gaming exceeded 1 billion hours watched for the first time.
However, although Q3 2020 saw a small drop in hours viewed, it still represents a 91.8% increase on the 3.89 billion hours watched in Q3 2019.
Streamlabs also included some data about the top eSports watched during the quarter (Q3 2020). LCK (League of Legends Champions Korea) saw 33,310,312 hours watched. This was closely followed by the PUBG Mobile World League 2020, with 33,179,000 hours watched, and League of Legends European Championship, with 28,957,234 hours watched.
Since consumers spend so much time on eSports, this means that brands need to meet them where they're at by adopting eSports marketing. This could be through ads, reviews, product positioning, influencer marketing, and more.
eSports Revenue Growth and How Brands are Contributing to It
Realizing the potential of tapping into the eSports market, some brands have already made significant eSports marketing investments. So, the industry has seen an impressive increase in revenue in recent years.
According to the previously cited Newzoo analysis, there was an average revenue increase of more than 30% annually until 2018. The rate of increase decreased at this point; however, eSports revenue in 2019 was $957.5 million, still a 23.3% YOY growth (and slightly greater than what Newzoo had predicted). Yet, COVID has had a noticeable impact on eSports revenue, and Newzoo has revised its 2020 eSports revenue estimates downward from $1100.1 million (as predicted in February 2020) to $950.3 million globally. If this is accurate, it will represent a fall of 0.8% in YOY revenues. This fall in revenue will predominantly occur because there is currently almost no in-person attendance at eSports events, with restrictions on large gatherings. As we have seen elsewhere, eSports and gaming are more popular than ever – there are, however, COVID-related restrictions on revenue streams at the moment.
Newzoo’s latest estimates of eSports revenue streams, suggest that the $950.3 million is likely to be made up as follows: sponsorship $584.1 million (up 7.5%), media rights $163.3 million (up 3.3%), publisher fees $108.9 million (down 11.6%), merchandise & tickets $52.5 million (down 50.3%), digital $21.5 million (up 60.9%), and streaming $19.9 million (up 44.9%). The effects of COVID are obvious when you look at the relative changes in the revenue streams.
Visible Growth in eSports Tournaments
There's little doubt that with so much growth in many of these statistics, there would also be growth in eSports tournament prize money and player earnings – at least until COVID arrived. In 2018, the total prize money for 4579 tournaments was $164,829,763. So, the mean tournament prize pool was $35,997. With 23,020 active players at these tournaments, the mean earnings for each player were $7,160.
In 2019, the total prize money for 5288 tournaments was $234,433,656, up 42%. So, the mean tournament prize pool was $35,997. With 27,279 active players at these tournaments, each player's mean earnings were $8,594, up 20%.
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Unfortunately, COVID has seen a considerable drop in both the number of tournaments and total prize money offered. As of late October, the mean earnings per player plummeted to $3,975.
What Is The Biggest Esports Tournament
Conclusion
These stats showcase eSports' rapid growth until the recent temporary reduction due to the effects of COVID on large-scale events. Gamers are spending more time than ever on the streaming platforms at the moment; however, they have less competitive content to view.
Popular Esports Tournaments And Leagues
But this will only be temporary. The reduction in eSports events is considerably less than many traditional sporting occasions. Many competitive eSports continue. You can still sponsor teams at tournaments (remember that sponsorship has continued to rise, despite the effects of COVID). Perhaps you could also partner with influencers in the industry and have them promote your brand or review your products. There are tons of opportunities you can seize to ride the wave of eSports' popularity.