In terms of both revenue and viewership, the esports industry has grown exponentially over the last few years, with millions now tuning in regularly and million-pound prize pools for tournaments.
The explosion of these tournaments, coinciding with the rise of games like League of Legends, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and DOTA 2, has caught eyes in recent years, well and truly establishing the industry in the mainstream.
Here, Sports Mole takes a closer look at how esports tournaments have grown over the years, and punters can download Dota 2 from buff game.
Esports revenue growth
With a growing number of companies tapping into the rich industry with marketing investments and broadcasting deals, esports have seen an impressive and continuous growth of income by the year.According to various studies, there was an average revenue increase of upwards of 30% year-on-year up to 2018, and while the rate slightly dropped after that, a 23.3% growth still led to an eye-catching revenue figure of $957.5m in 2019.
As with every event relying on a live crowd, the COVID-19 outbreak proved to be a hit for the industry, but with the ability to live stream, tournaments were not completely put on hold, with the revenue streams diversifying instead, potentially setting up a boosted revenue capacity in the long run when live audiences can return in full alongside the improved online coverage.
While 2020 saw a slight drop to $947.1m in 2020, due to the limited live crowds, that reduction was far less than that suffered in the majority of sport worldwide, and 2021 looks set to be a return to the previous rates of growth as restrictions continue to decrease.
Early projections have estimated the yearly revenue to reach over $1bn in 2021, while a further look forward to 2024 brings a projection of $1.61bn of global revenue.
On the whole, the only way seems to be up for the industry heading into the future, as diversified revenue streams in recent years have provided the platform for more long-term success, through boosted marketing deals, celebrity status of world-leading players and improved global online coverage alongside a growing fanbase attending events live.
Tournament earnings
Given the increased revenue in recent years, prize pools in the world's esports tournaments were always bound to see a rise, and these followed a similar trend, rising exponentially until the outbreak of the pandemic.
In 2019, at the peak of the previous rise, the total prize money for 5991 tournaments across the year was over $236m, working out to a mean tournament prize of $42,250 and making each player's mean earnings $8,336 for the year.
Following the arrival of the pandemic, the overall tournament prize pool fell to $119,457,468 for a reduced tally of 4,478 tournaments. That worked out to a mean tournament prize pool of $26,677, with 24,231 active players earning a mean income of $4,930.
While that took a dip as expected, the signs are positive for players going forward, as early signs have shown a rise in these figures this year, with each player's mean earnings standing at $5,395 at the half-way point of the year.
Similarly to the global revenue, this figure should only rise in the coming years, having increased exponentially in the last decade in line with the growth of the industry into the mainstream.
Increased global viewership
In a certain way, the COVID-19 pandemic may have had a positive impact regarding viewing figures for the esports industry heading into the future.In previous years, tournament viewing figures continuously showed year-on-year growth as the industry became further entwined with the mainstream, with a 12.3% increase in viewership between 2018 and 2019 alone.
In the adjusted figures for 2019, Newzoo concluded there were 200.8 million occasional viewers and 197 million esports enthusiasts worldwide, a huge growth on the figures from five and 10 years prior.
That immense growth continued into 2020, with last year seeing an estimated 220.5 million occasional viewers and 215.4 million enthusiasts, making a combined viewership of 435.9 million worldwide.
Given the capabilities of online streaming, this is only expected to continue, with reports projecting a further 8.7% growth in 2021, a far cry from the early days of esports tournaments, when they were firmly a niche in the sports world.
