Here Comes the New Challenger: Esports Gaining Ground

If there’s still some kind of lingering idea that videogames are child’s play and that pro gamers are just a bunch of slackers who don’t want to do any serious work, it’s time to put it to rest once and for all. The global esports market is currently valued at U$1.38 billion, and is expected to grow at over 23 percent a year, reaching a value of U$2.89 billion by 2025, according to Statista. With over almost 730 million people watching esports worldwide, media companies are flocking to the industry to secure valuable streaming rights deals, while sponsors are eager to put their names on the top esports competitions. Traditional sports teams and associations know this, and so, they have joined the fray.

Traditional Sports, Meet Esports

As early as 2004, FIFA started the Fifa Interactive World Cup, which today has become the FIFAe World Cup. More recently, in 2017, the National Football League in the US launched the Madden esports tournament, and was quickly followed by Formula One’s F1 Esports Series, which had almost 64,000 drivers competing in the qualifying stage. The NBA started the NBA 2K League in 2018, with the initial participation of 17 NBA teams (it has now expanded to 24). That same year, Major League Soccer launched the eMLS Cup and the National Hockey League launched the NHL World Gaming Championship. In 2020, it was the turn of Major League Baseball, which launched the MLB esports tournament. 

Several teams have also started competing in esports, and not necessarily with a virtual representation of the same sport they are famous for. League of Legends is one of the games that attracts the most teams. It’s hardly surprising, considering that the 2021 edition of the League of Legends World Championship had a peak viewership of 4.01 million. 

Soccer powerhouse FC Barcelona has recently announced their LoL team, but they’re hardly the first. In Argentina, local teams Boca Juniors and River Plate were regional pioneers, and both compete, along with Newell’s Old Boys, in the Liga Master Flow, Argentina’s top League of Legends competition. The country also holds a small eight-team league that is exclusive for soccer teams. Other games with the participation of traditional sports teams are Hearthstone, Rocket League (FC Barcelona has had stellar performances in both), Free Fire and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, to name a few. 

An Explosive Mix 

There are several reasons why esports have experienced such a massive boom. One is the improvement in internet infrastructure worldwide and the major shift in viewership trends that has seen time spent on mobile devices surpass time spent on television and other media sources. Platforms like  YouTube, Facebook and Twitch help amplify the fame of streamers and pro gamers, who are often seen as more approachable than traditional sports personalities. 

Another key element: inclusivity. While traditional sports are typically segregated and not always friendly to different gender identities, in esports the playing field is more even. You don’t even need to be the athletic type. That is not to say there aren’t any issues. The esports scene is still very much male-dominated, and even though women make up almost 50 percent of gamers, they’re clearly underrepresented in esports, with few female pro gamers and with only 22 percent of viewers being female. Moreover, according to a 2020 study, 41 percent of women and 37 percent of LGBTQ+ people reported having experienced online harassment due to their gender identities. However, the fact that there is no official division or male-female binary categories ensure much more equality, opportunities and representation, something new generations increasingly demand. 

Thanks to the combination of a technological and a cultural fit, esports viewership is growing dramatically. In the US, esports were second only to the NFL in terms of audience in 2020, despite the fact that 80 percent of Americans declared either not knowing what esports were or having no interest in them. While still far away from the absolute dominance of soccer in terms of global viewership, with an estimated fanbase of 3.5 billion people worldwide, esports are on the fast track to becoming perhaps the second-most important sport on the planet in the next few years. 

We’ve certainly come a long way since the days of Dennis “Thresh” Fong, considered to be the first professional gamer (who has a Guinness World Record to back up the claim). With wild growth forecasts and billions of dollars involved, those who used to snicker at the idea of video game sports competing elbow to elbow with traditional sports have had to eat their words. So, let’s cast all doubts aside once and for all. Esports are more than just a game. They’re big business, and they’re here to stay.