However, in the hot current society of e-sports, whether professionals or amateurs participate in electronic game competitions, just a click of the mouse may affect the final direction of the highest prize of $10 million. Therefore, a suitable esports chair is as important as the superstar players of Overwatch or Dota 2, just as the tennis rackets of Federer and Messi's football shoes.
"Sense is everything," said Alex Lim, Secretary General of the International Esports Federation, who is fighting for the esports program and hopes that it will be included in the Olympic Games by 2024. "The sports pastime of our generation is the football field in the backyard, while the main battlefield of our next generation is the computer screen. We are living in an era of digital culture, in which many things need to be redefined - sports is one of them."
Although Lin Zhiguo's remarks have been questioned by some broadcasters and sports marketing companies, they have indeed brought huge commercial impacts. According to research reports from multiple surveys and forecast agencies, the global gaming industry is expected to have annual revenue exceeding US$100 billion this year and will continue to be higher than the wider entertainment industry. Although e-sports operators currently lack a comprehensive and unified business model, their rapid business development trend has shocked many insiders. If mainstream broadcasting media organizations can pay attention to the content of e-sports and use it correctly, and use it as a powerful weapon to grab the audience from mobile phones and computer screens, the development prospects of e-sports will be even more immeasurable.
▲ How important professional football boots are to Messi, how important is the DXRacer RV131 to e-sports players.
Lin Zhiguo believes that in the next five years, the media, technology and advertising industries will be divided into two camps: one is the people who regard the RV131 as a comfortable office chair, and the other is the people who regard it as expensive professional sports equipment.
What the former will miss is a sports event with a total viewing time of up to 6 billion hours last year. Moreover, e-sports has begun to transform into the mainstream sports and entertainment industry. In the future, by promoting eye-catching company transactions, it will create international superstars and teams in the e-sports industry. The era of e-sports industry entering the multi-billion dollar scale is right in front of you.
Early forecast reports indicate that the revenue of the esports industry will be obtained through three main channels: selling broadcast rights to broadcast media, paid viewing of live broadcasts (some high-level game live broadcasts can attract tens of millions of online viewers), and advertising revenue from the gaming industry gradually expands to peripheral products.
E-sports is the first entertainment trend that has emerged from Asia and has been launched around the world - it was first launched by South Korea and has achieved maximum development in China. However, the early development of the e-sports industry was hindered by organizational chaos.
Digital Esports: Revenue Digital
100 billion is the total annual revenue expected to flow into the global gaming industry this year.
.693 billion 's revenue comes from the esports industry, and by 2020, this number will double to $1.5 billion.
11.1 billion is the traffic of in China last year, and the number in North America was 2.7 billion.
Pietro Fringuell, head of media and sports business at CMS, London legal and tax consulting firm, said the esports industry was indeed in chaos at the beginning. Flynn Guelly was also one of the early players in esports games.But he also said that the fans and audience of e-sports are mainly young people in their teenagers and early twenties. With such a fan base, e-sports games can easily attract advertisers and sponsors. Mr. Flynn Guelly said that more than one-third of the American e-sports gamers are high-income earners who are willing and capable of spending money on genuine games from companies such as HBO and Spotify.
Many game publishers and event promoters have realized the bright prospects of the industry's development: Currently, plans to build professional e-sports venues in two largest casinos in Las Vegas are underway; in Japan, Tokyo Animation Academy also offers a course for students to teach professional e-sports commentators' expertise; in 2014, Amazon acquired Twitch, a live streaming video platform for video games for just $1 billion. Today, Twitch has more than 38 million monthly visits, making it the most popular game forum among the gamers.
Several other platforms are also struggling to compete for the attention of e-sports enthusiasts, such as YouTube Gaming, Facebook and Activision Blizzard. Traditional broadcasters like Sky, UK are also actively exploring how to enter the esports market and attract young audiences.
Source of revenue: Competition tickets and paid live broadcasts
esports' grand development has opened up the horizons of game publishers, and marketing is still an important driving factor. Game developers like Activision Blizzard and Riot Games have now used the esports league as their primary way of profit.
11 November 4, the 2017 League of Legends Global Finals (S7) championship battle was held at Beijing National Stadium Bird's Nest. A total of more than 40,000 spectators attended the game. The ticket price for the finals is US$41-185, which is similar to the price of the American Professional Baseball League (MLB). In addition to tickets, there are other e-sports merchandise promotions: fans of teams such as Cloud9, Fnatic and Immortals can buy shirts with team logos, mouse pads and even dedicated e-sports gaming chairs.
In Activision Blizzard's latest Overwatch League, Activision Blizzard divided its revenue into three categories according to media broadcast rights, game peripheral products and team sponsorship revenue. This classification method is almost the same as earlier forecast reports.
Some analysts believe that with the birth of 5G network technology, the e-sports industry will usher in a new round of content output and distribution. But as a British TV executive said: "At present, no one can predict whether there will be a more profitable place tomorrow." The best gamers of
, such as Faker, KuroKy and Neo, have the ID names in these games, which help them participate in the competition every year and earn millions of dollars in revenue. But to continue to maintain their position, they still need to learn too much.
Riot Games is a game publisher of League of Legends. It is operated by Tencent Games Agency in mainland China. It has more than 100 million monthly players and is also a giant in the e-sports game industry. Chris Hopper, head of alliance operations, said that with the popularity of LoL, superstar players suddenly became the focus of world attention, but both the e-sports industry and the players themselves were not fully prepared to welcome the overwhelming attention.
Hope said: "Five years ago, all of our gamers were unknown ordinary people, staying in college dormitories or apartments to play games. However, James started media training since he was 10 years old. Before he first appeared on the NBA stadium, he had filmed the cover for Sports Illustrated many times."
Digital Esports: Player numbers
. 5.1 billion is the monthly player of the hero vs. MOBA competitive online game League of Legends.
53% English, American, French and German e-sports fans of believe that e-sports is a formal sports event.
57% of 's e-sports fans are from China, with at least 6 million college students.
In order to concentrate in the game, using banned drugs such as Adderall without a prescription, using secret software failures and cheating in specific games has made esports undergo an unregulated and dangerous "colonization era". Some believe that the moral issues involved in these scandals are as serious as traditional sports.
"We think e-sports... has real global appeal," Mr. Hope emphasized the view of most people in the industry. "E-sports games do not have any inherent socio-cultural characteristics, which will make it more attractive in one region than in another." The success of
E-sports league live broadcast surprised media platform companies that a live broadcast of an e-sports game can actually be so popular among the public. Before this, the bosses of media companies agreed that esports is just a niche sport. However, the trend of rising audiences is exactly in line with the trend of falling audiences in traditional American sports, including professional football.
"Like star athletes in traditional sports, esports superstar players use the same roles in the game and play within the same area," explained Ariel Horn, former NBC current captain and Riot's global esports content head. "This is the same as any traditional sports except golf."
Revenue source: Media and Radio and Television broadcast rights
For game publishers, most of the revenue comes from viewers paying to watch online live broadcasts. Nearly 400 million people watched the League of Legends World Cup last year, and this audience size is comparable to the Football World Cup. "Esports is the first 'digital indigenous' movement in history," said Pete Vlastelica, CEO of MLG, an Activision Blizzard. Game publishers and league operators hope to sell broadcast rights to broadcast companies, and to push e-sports to mainstream media while helping traditional media such as radio and television retain viewers. For example, League of Legends publisher Riot signed a $300 million licensing agreement with BAMTech.
Nilsen, a well-known market research company, said that this phenomenon continues. Nelson created a research project for e-sports business. Through the survey, it was found that 53% of e-sports enthusiasts in the United States, Britain, France and Germany believed that competitive gaming was a sport, and more than two-thirds believed that e-sports was about to become a mainstream sport. Game industry research company Newzoo predicts that by 2020, the global e-sports users will reach 580 million.
"Broadcasting and television companies, traditional sports, and advertisers must realize that both e-sports leagues and e-sports themselves are no longer niche sports. It is already an activity that accompanys the growth of a generation, not a simple entertainment," said Mr. Lin. "E-sports has grown up with a generation and has made huge profits now. Is this a formal sports? "
Facts prove that Mr. Lin's optimistic attitude is not without reason, and his remarks also show that e-sports is a reflection of the profound changes in people's entertainment projects and consumption methods today.
NHL Ari Segal, former chief operating officer of the Arizona Coyotes and currently the director of the esports club in Immortals in Los Angeles, believes that this feature of the close integration of esports and the Internet gives it development potential that traditional sports do not have.
He said: "The attention and participation of games are positively correlated with the popularity of e-sports. Judging from the current consumption scale, I think there are still huge business opportunities in the market."
Digital E-sports: Commercial digital
USD is the contract price signed by League of Legends game publisher Riot and Internet video provider BAMTec.
html$5.34 billion is the price of e-sports game media broadcast rights by 2020, and the price in 2017 is $95 million.
600 is the number of e-sports sponsored transactions of Red Bull and Coca-Cola Company since the beginning of 2016.
In the United States, about 20 American universities have established university teams for e-sports.In 2016, visiting e-sports contestants were allowed to enter the country with athlete visas. The Asian Games held in Hangzhou, China in 2022 will include e-sports in the competition event, and Hangzhou is also the home of the online retail giant Alibaba .
In Europe, more than 20 European football clubs have established e-sports teams, including the French Ligue 1 giants Paris Saint-Germain and Ajax. These e-sports team members will compete in a football online game, "FIFA18". Clubs in the NBA and NHL are also planning to set up similar teams and leagues in basketball and ice hockey.
From Newzoo analysis earlier this year, predicted that the e-sports industry's global revenue will reach US$696 million this year, including media copyright, advertising, sponsorship and ticketing sales (excluding virtual equipment upgrades in games, etc.). By 2020, total revenue is expected to more than double to $1.5 billion, mainly due to the influx of a large number of sponsors outside the gaming industry such as Intel , Samsung , etc.
Revenue Source: Advertising Sponsorship
Intel's VR and Esports business head John Bonini believes that to some extent, many early esports sponsors were linked to the gaming industry, including PC manufacturers and game peripherals, such as Razer and Logitech . And now, more traditional brands are also beginning to join in. This year, P&G's razor brand Gillette co-sponsored ESL's Extreme Masters with Intel in Poland. Intel is also the chief sponsor of the Overwatch League. According to Nelson, more than 600 sponsored deals for e-sports have been reached since the beginning of 2016. The fastest price growth is media broadcast rights. Media copyright is expected to grow from $95 million this year to $340 million by 2020, and traditional sports broadcasters such as Sky Sports Sky and ESPN have planned to enter the e-sports market to bid with Twitch, Facebook and YouTube.
However, the strongest opposition to the thriving development of the e-sports industry actually comes from the internal "traditional" video game industry, especially Japan's Sony and Nintendo . They believe that their console business is under threat because most of the most popular video games are operated on personal computers. The companies said that while they are interested in the esports industry, they are still unclear about their business operations and cannot justify large investments.
Reggie Fils-Aimé, chief operating officer of Nintendo, said that while Nintendo believes in the appeal of esports, he is still unsure that selling games to TV broadcasters, and urban co-operators like Activision Blizzard’s Overwatch League is a realistic and feasible plan. He said: "The e-sports industry has such high future value and development potential, and needs to have a complete marketing model. While attracting audiences, you must also know how to retain audiences. After all, there is a network between us and the audience."
But given the grand occasion of the S7 championship battle, the remarks of traditional game companies like Nintendo still need to be viewed dialectically. The 2017 League of Legends Global Finals Championship Finals was held at the Bird's Nest Stadium in the 2008 Beijing Olympics, with 40,000 spectators watching the game on site. The competition was broadcast live to millions of viewers around the world in 20 languages, with all-Korean live streaming attracting a lot of online attention, and Samsung Galaxy won the largest share of the $5 million prize. This grand occasion deserves attention from traditional sports.
Statement: This article is compiled from Financial Times by Lazy Bear Sports, and the original authors are Leo Lewis and Tim Bradshaw.
