The Rapid Growth of Esports: It's Inevitable

Considering how the Philippine team dominated the recently-concluded 2020 International Basketball Federation (FIBA) Esports Open plus the success of Sibol in their inaugural run of the esports tournament in last year's Southeast Asian Games here in Manila, the revenue of the esports industry is expected to grow drastically not just in the Philippines but, globally. And since most of us are still stuck at the comfort of our homes due to the still ongoing 2019 Novel Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) pandemic, that can help in the rapid growth of the industry not just in terms of the revenue that it's estimated to receive but also, in terms of the number of players joining in the fun as even professional athletes such as some of the stars in the National Basketball Association (NBA) have been using the quarantine period to engage themselves in some NBA 2k competitions with some even joining the NBA  2K Players' Tournament last April. 

And as observers have been pointing out, more and more people are now watching Esports as the compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of esports' viewership is projected to grow at 9% with experts projecting esports getting 646 million viewers by 2023. This would be a big leap for the industry that only got an audience count that stood at 335 million back in 2017. A big part of the reason for the sky-rocketing of the number of people watching Esports is that the industry itself has become culturized as it has now attracted investors globally plus the media is now covering them as well which brings the industry closer to the public. It's as if Esports has a domino effect to the public and vice versa. 

And, by becoming a global competition, Esports opens a lot of possibilities for revenues. For starters, streaming platforms for esports competitions have been everywhere with platforms such as Twitch and even YouTube Gaming allows fans to have a direct connection to the Esports competitors. But more importantly, Esports, like any other sport in the world, is a business and in any business, there's an investment and there's revenue. In 2018, investments in Esports reached 4.5 billion Dollars which was way higher to the 2017 count which only stood at 490 million Dollars. These investments came in the form of Esports organizations, to the tournament operators, and to the digital broadcasters as these allow the entire industry not just to properly function but most importantly, to continuously grow. In return, the revenue of the industry has reached new heights as it was reported back in 2018 that video games sales have reached 139 billion Dollars and by 2022, that number will go up to 200 billion Dollars and that is already expected from esports being one of the fastest-growing forms of entertainment on top of the said industry being a global competition.

Locally, Philippine Esports is projected to grow drastically as well primarily because of last year's launch of "The Nationals", the country's first franchise-based Esports league that was sponsored by the MVP Group of Companies  If anything, the growth of Esports both locally and globally, as Thanos called it, "inevitable". 

Photo is from Otakultura