COVID-19 has changed the NBA and NHL schedules drastically, but what about E-Sports and their athletes? E-Sports is a professional sport that is played in the virtual world, online or in person. It is a new form of sports that has recently taken the world by storm due to technological advancements that have made it easier than ever to have fun with your friends and making a living doing it. It may seem silly to some and is very questioned as an actual ‘sport’ but its massive following and people's attraction to the sport has opened up a new consumer market.

E-Sports Before Covid

Although all these games are played online COVID-19 has still had a massive effect on the community overall. Most games are set up via LAN at tournaments, as it gives you a much better connection and doesn’t give advantages due to internet connection or latency. But with COVID-19 making it nearly impossible for anybody to be in an enclosed space, and be safe, this market has seen large impacts. Especially within attendance numbers for events. Luckily, because these games are all played in the virtual world it has made it easier than ever for people to watch the sport in the comfort of their own home for free. Streaming services like Twitch and YouTube have seen massive bumps in their viewing numbers and it has created a whole new business for other competitors to join themselves. The games that are mainly played on the big stage, and have large cash rewards, are big titles. Some have been around for years while others are new games with players entering daily. One example of one of these “big titles” would be Fortnite. In 2019 Epic games (the creator of Fortnite) had a tournament where there was a cash prize of 3 million dollars rewarded to a 15-year-old who goes by the name of “Bugha” for winning the tournament. Each participant was given $50,000 just for showing up and the total prize pool was over 30 million dollars, a record-setting number for E-Sports history, and yet somehow Fortnite still came out profiting from the event. This was done by making the event as much like a sports game as they possibly could. Bringing all of the players to a tennis court in New York that seats over 19,000 people. They sold tickets for $50-$150 and sold out in seconds after they were released online. They also streamed the tournament on Twitch and YouTube getting over 2 million supporters worldwide, that's not including all the other services, and that you could watch the games on the Fortnite app as well. This year however the Fortnite world Cup has been canceled due to the limitations of people in small spaces, and the reliability of international servers. This is going to be a major hit for Fortnite as they netted over 1.8 billion dollars in 2019 with at least $50,000,000 coming from the world cup alone EpicGames. After this tournament, it caught the news by storm and was all over social media, “could someone really make a living playing video game”. This theory has been around for years but has always been very iffy as it isn’t seen as an actual talent when in all honesty anybody who is top in the world at something should and are paid a lot to do what they do. The appeal to the sport was summarized extremely well, by a large social influencer of the sport, who goes by the name of “Ninja” saying “Why would you wanna watch soccer, hockey, football? Because most people can’t go on a video game and compete at as high of a level, so when they’re watching me they’re able to see things they could never do, be done.” YouTube. This is true for practically anything in life as long as there are people to watch then there will continue to be people who make a living doing it.

Covid-19's Effects on E-Sports Tournaments and Events

In the e-sports community (not just Fortnite) there are also many other tournaments that have made different companies millions of dollars as well. Just like sports events these tournaments are always packed with children and adults of all ages dying to see their favorite athletes compete. Although these events are usually only once or twice a year they can drag in thousands of fans with millions watching at home. DreamHack is another good example of an event that will be affected, but not by much. It is a gaming event started in 1997 where hundreds of thousands of enthusiastic and players compete for the top spot in their respected games online and in person. They also hold tournaments online almost every week but make the majority of profits of the main event held in different countries s every year, and stretches over a three-day span and 2019 saw over 360,000 total visitors DreamHack. Luckily this hasn't been the largest issue for them. The company netted a total of 6,243,833 viewers over the 2019 season, this spread across 60 and events with players competing in 7 different titles DreamHack. This year however DreamHack has had to reschedule more than 4 events and have canceled the in-person aspects of the event. This makes a huge difference to the players because, as mentioned before there is a large impact on LAN vs online tournaments. It has been a massive issue due to complaints from the players, as well as lost profits on the actual events. Even with these issues, they have already managed to reach over 20 million viewers since 2020 over a span of fewer than 20 events and the same 7 titles. This shows that if anything the e-sports community will benefit from COVID-19 in terms of profits and popularity. It has grown dramatically clearly in the last year and it has been easier than ever to stream. With 2 new gaming consoles releases this year and people being inside all day isolated, it makes it easier than ever for people to watch. The effects of the isolation have led to an increase in the number of all streaming services as when people get bored they go to the internet for entertaining themselves.

The Future of Merchandise for E-Sports

Merchandise is a huge part of the revenue stream for e-sports. It started years ago when teams realized they could profit off of the popularity of the teams. This related similarity to how other sports try and push merchandise as it can be acquired for a very low amount and sold for a higher value based on popularity. There is little work in this for the teams as well as it is usually outsourced to save costs netting the esports community a total of over 1.1 billion dollars with at least 1/10 being all thanks to merchandise TSN. These figures are already massive and are opening up many new doors for the industry. As e-sports become increasingly popular these numbers will only continue to grow. Newzoo also stated in their 2019 e-Sports Global Market Report that "The global average revenue per Esports Enthusiast will be $5.45 this year" a startling number when you look at the amount of subscribers some players and teams have come by in recent years. The only downside to this whole lifestyle, merchandise included, is that people can become very famous quickly and get (as the kids say) 'canceled' just as fast. It is very hard as an e-sports athlete to gain loyal followers because as people move on they lose interest in video games due to society. Making it an easy short-term job, but in some cases, it can be damaging to one's reputation and can let them never make a dollar again. Merchandise is another part of this because as they sell their merchandise they don't realize it's out there forever, in some cases, leading to it being detrimental to people's careers instead of influential, due to inappropriate use of their popularity power.

The Future of E-Sports As A Whole

The future of e-sports is looking extremely bright in terms of the effects COVID-19 will be having on it. Without COVID-19, the DreamHack events along with many others have had the most viewings in history, have increased in revenue and sales of merchandise and gaming is more popular than ever. With COVID-19 leaving everyone inside it has created a much larger audience for not only those watching, but also playing. Streaming services have proved to us that they can take over a market by creating easier ways to acquire entertainment. Twitch and other streaming companies for events in e-sports have been doing the same but trying to drag in the youth. the youth are very interesting in watching others play high-intensity games at extremely high levels. It keeps them engaged and also creates a much longer stimulus for them to be focused on. It draws in the viewers with simple gameplay and adds entertainment from the streamer and the chats that's can make it almost addictive. This photo shows how humans will continue to advance with technology.

Looking at the numbers in revenue, it is very clear that the market is growing as well. It shows that in 2019 there was over a 236 million dollar increase in revenue, growing from just $864 million in 2017 Pannekeet. That's also between two years difference, in term of difference from 2019-2020 there was an increase of about 16% bringing their revenue to a whopping 1.4 billion dollars globally Rietkerk. These trends have been followed steadily for the last 10 years, and this is due to new technology. With the ease of access to streaming services like Twitch and YouTube, there's no reason for youths to not watch their favorite athletes play their game. With electronics coming such a long way and with a mass pandemic locking us down, the stats are only going to go up as everything always was, and will continue to be online.

Sources

Byrne, S., LeFevre, J., Rennex, M., Malo, J., Junkee, M., & He, R. S. (2019, July 29). This Teen Just Won $4.3 Million At The 'Fortnite' World Cup. That's Not Even The Best Bit. Retrieved from https://junkee.com/fortnite-world-cup/215864

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Fallon, J., & Blevins, T. (2018, December 18). Tyler "Ninja" Blevins Jimmy Fallon. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kr8ia3DYB2E

Fortnite: World Cup. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.epicgames.com/fortnite/competitive/en-US/events/world-cup

Fudge, J. (2020, October 22). DreamHack Leipzig – Home Edition for 2021 Announced. Retrieved from https://esportsobserver.com/dreamhack-leipzig-home-edition/

LAN. Esports. Expo. Music. Cosplay. Streamers. We got it all. Welcome to DreamHack. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://dreamhack.com/

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