The Future of eSports
By: Michael Williams
Michael Williams is an entrepreneur and the Chief Visionary Officer of Glytch.
No matter how you look at the data, the trajectory of the eSports industry is clear: year-over-year market growth to the tune of billions of US dollars worldwide.
This year alone, eSports revenue topped a billion dollars for the first time; by 2024, conservative projections anticipate revenue to eclipse the $1.6 billion mark.
And you thought your business was profitable.
Still, the question is this: what’s driving this level of expansion? Is it the popularity of streaming platforms like Twitch, or are there other intangible influences beyond the numbers?
eSports Athletes Compared to Traditional Professional Athletes
Simply put, eSports athletes are professional athletes. They merely have a different skill set and a natural talent that you have to see to believe.
If you actually doubt that it takes specific skills to compete in online first-person shooters, pick up a console controller and try to get a single frag without shooting one of your own teammates in the back.
It’s a lot harder than it looks, and there’s a degree of athleticism that doesn’t get enough credit – and most likely never will.
Take, for example, the average age of the most financially successful professional eSports athletes: 25 years old.
I’ll give you one guess of the average age for professional NBA basketball players – 26 years old.
And what’s the average age of players in the NFL right now? The answer is (wait for it) also 25 years old!
So, what conclusions can we draw from this correlation?
In traditional sports, the cliché is that our physical fitness, including our trigger fingers and thumbs, is at its peak athleticism in our mid-20s.
If you don’t think that’s accurate, ask any general manager in the NBA or the NFL if they’d like to sign a 35-year-old veteran to a multi-million dollar contract extension.
The answer will always be no, not really. Because you can likely find a better, younger athlete that is still in their prime, which supports a longer period of profit potential and growth from each athlete.
Where do eSports go from here?
Honestly, eSports are a fascinating phenomenon, but they’re also a business just like any other professional sports franchise.
The only difference is that the NFL and NBA have been around for decades; eSports arrived only about five years ago.
What will be interesting to see in the near future will be how the current hodge-podge of corporate-sponsored clans will fare financially.
Will they get a fair slice of the pie, or will they get paid in free downloads and t-shirts?
While it’s always difficult to anticipate where any market will go, there’s one piece of advice I can give about where eSports are going: follow the money and see where it leads us.
