It may sound like Esports has only been around for a few years, but this activity can be traced as early as 1972. This was when a Space Invaders Championship event took place with around 10,000 participants. Since then, Esports has evolved and has become a bigger industry.
Today, Esports already has over 400 million television and online audiences. By 2020, it is predicted that it will have over 600 million fans or followers. The recent rise of this sector of the gaming and sports industry is mainly thanks to streaming platforms like Twitch and YouTube as these are sites where people can easily watch live games.
The rise of Esports has also been beneficial to the betting industry. Many betting sites and apps like William Hill now offer odds for esports tournaments like Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. In fact, this is the game that mainly introduced esports to the betting industry.
It’s not really a surprise that Esports is becoming more popular as it is an environment that’s ripe for investment. This is especially now that betting is becoming more widespread in the United States. Almost half of the United States have already passed laws that legalize local sports betting and so as more people place bets, the more options they want when it comes to what they can wager on.
Currently, these are the top 5 Esports tournaments that people wager on according to different betting sites and platforms:
• DOTA 2 – The International
• League of Legends World Championship
• League of Legends Mid-Season Invitational
• Counter-Strike: Global Offense ELeague Major
• The Overwatch League
A few other Esports tournaments that people have interest in when it comes to betting are StarCraft, Hearthstone Heroes of Warcraft, Call of Duty, Smite, Fortnite, and many other more.
It’s also important to note the Esports, for now, is still trying to find its place in the overall global market. Right now, it’s still only mainly popular in the east. It did mainly start in Eastern countries like South Korea and China and this could be because they are the first few countries that had fast internet access.
Right now, the US and parts of Europe are already catching up with the Esports trend and this is why we can only expect that more people will finally start to wager on esports tournaments.
During the last few weeks, many major sports leagues have called off their events because of the 2019 coronavirus pandemic. The most-followed sports league and associations like the English Premier League, the NBA, the Indian Premier League, and even the Olympics have already called their events off.
Because of this, the sports betting industry is already finding creative ways to still have something for their customers. Esports is one of the sectors that they are now leaning towards. It could fill the gaps that the major leagues have temporarily left for now.
What’s great about these tournaments is that they can be conducted online without the need for mass gathering. These matches can also be streamed on Twitch or YouTube for people to follow. Kent Wakeford, Co-founder of an Esports organization called Gen.G talked about why esports can continue to grow and get more following amidst the pandemic.
Wakeford said, “Canceled events impact a certain aspect of the fan experience, but unlike traditional sports where the live event is a financial and economic driver of the overall experience, esports is different in that, from a broadcast perspective, so much of broadcast is focused on online and not as dependent on the live audience.”
He explained further, “For the League of Legends World Championship at the Bird’s Nest in China there were 40,000 people, but 100 million people were watching it online. And it is [those] 100 million people that are fueling the growth of the esports ecosystem to a much greater degree than the actual events.”
Gen.G has seen that the Chinese viewership of Esports tournament rose to 18.2 percent in the last two months. These last two months were when complete lockdowns happened in Wuhan and other cities in China. The same may happen in the next few weeks now that more countries and states in the US are now ordering people to stay home.
James Ader, a gambling industry expert said that this is now an interesting time for virtual sports. He told MarketWatch, “The virtual sports industry is a real industry we are seeing growth in. People are betting on virtual sports. It’s a computer playing against the computer. “I suspect this could be a moment for Esports. If it isn’t, it will never be.”
