How esports works and who makes money on it
Cybersport is a competition in computer games. Can be team or individual. It is considered a sport, as it has all the signs of a classic sport, up to the fight against doping.
The sports here are the games themselves. Each region has its own game. In Eastern sEurope, this is Counter Strike: Global Offensive, Minecraft. In Japan, games with characters stylized as animated characters are more popular. America loves League of Legends, Call of Duty, and Valorant. Following esport tournaments is no longer a problem, support your team or watch your favorite game with Progamestars.
As in regular sports, eSports has “top” – the most popular – teams of players. In the global market, esports stars earn good money.
Tournaments are held online or on a separate site. Esports arenas allow you to make a high-quality show, which attracts more top teams and sponsors. According to the collected data, the audience of esports tournaments today reaches 500 million viewers in the world. These are people aged 18-35 years.
How do organizers earn?
Depending on the tournament and the level of participating teams, a tournament operator can earn from $20,000 to several million dollars. The average figure for the market on a global scale is about $1 million per event. The higher the level of the teams that participate in the tournament, the higher the potential earnings.
The league brings in more income, a series of tournaments that last six months or a year. This money is brought by sponsors and the sale of rights to use and broadcast content. Sponsors can include bookmakers, car brands, energy drink manufacturers such as PepsiCo and Nestle, and food chain McDonald’s. This is also interesting for tech brands that are focused on eSports.
Content is bought depending on the discipline, region and team. For example, media rights to Dota 2 content are more often taken by companies from China. The cost of such rights varies from $100,000 to $2 million per tournament. In addition to China, Latin America and European platforms are interested in the rights to WePlay tournaments.
Mobile esports is becoming a promising new direction in the market, as a smartphone is more affordable than a gaming PC. While this option is more popular in Africa and Asia. Soon, the development of the mobile games market will also begin, but in what format this will happen, the company has not yet specified.
How to participate in esports competitions
How to participate in eSports competitions? In fact, it’s easy – all thanks to the Internet. In most tournaments and leagues, qualifying matches have moved from clubs to online servers. It is enough to watch the nearest beginner league, register (in some it is not free), and show your skill. If you perform successfully and demonstrate a high level of play, then you can quickly move to the semi-professional league, and there it’s not far from the pro league. The main thing is to study, train and find like-minded people.
By the way, we also have semi-formal esports schools where you can learn from esports gurus. And if you impress them, then get an invitation to the team (but for this you need to be a very talented player).
There is another way to enter eSports, and that is streaming. If you have a high skill and streams gather a lot of viewers, there are high chances of getting an invitation from some team. However, if you didn’t work out with gaming skills, but you have a good tongue, then it’s not necessary to play on your own. You can walk and stream from local offline tournaments. Or go further and comment on online broadcasts from major esports competitions. We also have a shortage of good commentators, and new faces / voices will not be superfluous at all.