Global Esports Market Overview, 2023-28

Global Esports Market Overview, 2023-28

Esport is a type of online sport in which two or more contestants engage in a multiplayer environment using online video games. It serves the same purpose as modern sports. The rising popularity of online video games is the primary market factor driving the growth of the Esports market. Esports are competitions that take place in the world of video games and are gaining more and more ground in the entertainment industry. The traditional way in which participants gather around a console to play their favourite game has evolved over time into a professional activity, organised and able to bring thousands of competitors together in a single event – whether online or in person – and attract millions of spectators. Esports is a rapidly expanding industry that has drawn viewers and investments alike. The introduction of streaming platforms as well as the improvement in mobile technology has allowed the industry to grow from its arcade hall beginnings in the 1970s to competitors streaming games to millions of viewers globally. In addition to being highly visible (192 million frequent viewers in 2017), the esports industry is also lucrative. Globally, the increasing popularity of mobile gaming is an important contributing factor, as well as the continued appeal of the first-person shooter, battle royale, and MOBA genres. Furthermore, younger generations that have grown up with gaming and watching video game content continue to age into the market, further driving audience growth.

According to the research report, “Global Esports Market Overview, 2023-28” published by Bonafide Research, the market is anticipated to attain market size of USD 4380 Million by 2028, increasing from USD 1684.39 Million in 2022. The overall market is projected to grow with 17.52% CAGR for 2023-2028. The eSports industry has seen tremendous growth over the years, both in terms of viewership and revenue. The increasing viewership is what mainly contributed to the revenue growth – and it's not just because those viewers are generating revenue. Seeing the potential of reaching a large and engaged audience, brands are investing in eSports marketing, both directly and indirectly. This has contributed to rapid revenue growth in the industry, only slowed down by COVID limiting significant public eSports events, although things seem to be returning to normal in 2022. eSports has also experienced growth in several other aspects, with many of them interrelated in one way or another. Dota2, Fortnite, League of Legends, and Counterstrike: Overwatch and Global Offensive are the gaming industry leaders. The video gaming industry has evolved from a hobby to a professional career option. The tournaments are attracting investors, including celebrities and international brands, as sponsors due to the immense engagement of fans for esports tournaments.

Based on the report, the market is segmented into various parts including sponsorship, media rights, merchandise & tickets, publisher fees, digital and streaming. Among them, sponsorship segment leads the market with more than 59% market share in 2022. Sponsorship revenues have been the foundation on which the esports market was built, so it’s no surprise that it continues to be the highest-grossing revenue stream. The increasing competition in the sponsorship industry has led brands to seek differentiation and authenticity through sponsorships in the esports and gaming industry. Many non-endemic brands chose to enter eSports on the familiar ground through a digital extension of existing traditional sponsorship relationships—for example, football with the eSports extension of FIFA. Blockchain companies are boosting sponsorship growth in esports by investing high figures into teams and tournaments to reach the esports audience. Digital and streaming are the two fastest-growing revenue streams for esports. The increasing awareness of digital assets that came with NFTs is likely to boost investment and fan interest in acquiring in-game items of esports IP.
Food and beverage sponsors typically fall within a subset of “gamer culture” snacks and refreshments such as the Doritos and Mountain Dew. While there is some truth to the memes (Mountain Dew was recently announced as an official partner for a Call of Duty League Major), some of the more popular sponsors have been mostly energy drink companies, like GFuel, Monster, and Red Bull, who each sponsor multiple teams, sometimes within the same game title, too. Red Bull in particular has also begun branching off into sponsoring entire game leagues like VALORANT’s Champions Tour in EMEA. All that being said, more snacks, fast food, and even food delivery companies are joining the bandwagon, including Totino’s partnership with FaZe Clan, Grubhub’s partnership with the League of Legends’s League Championship Series, and Gen.G Esports’s partnership with McDonald’s Esports League.

The global esports market is further segmented into various device types including mobile (smartphone, tablet, etc.), PC (laptop, desktop), gaming device (console, handheld devices) and other (VR, smart TV, etc.) Among them, mobile segment is leading the market in 2022 and is expected to continue its dominance during the forecast period due to improvements in game quality and internet usage by millennials. One of the main reasons there has been growth in eSports viewership is that more people are learning about it. There has been a tremendous rise in awareness of the eSports industry since 2015. There were slightly more than 800,000 people who had heard about it back then. These numbers soon changed, and by the following year, more than a billion people had learned about eSports. Additionally, Ohio State University, Becker College in Massachusetts, and Virginia's Shenandoah University provide the esports degree course. Additionally, more than 100 high schools in the U.S. are conducting esports programs and other games such as traditional soccer. Some institutes are also providing scholarships to the players to increase the growth of the course; the University of California Irvine is giving scholarships to the top 6 players.

As per global Esports market trends Asia-Pacific is further anticipated to dominate the Esports market in the upcoming years. This is attributed to the fact that large population in this region has created an extensive pool of mobile subscribers for E-sport companies. Moreover, the region is the largest contributor of internet subscriber which is important for online gaming in the globe. Asia-Pacific is further anticipated to witness heavy growth in deployments of Esport service in the upcoming years, due to major shift toward digital transformation and the initiative of partnership in Esport service taken by key players in the countries, including China, India, and Japan. In the current market scenario, substantial growth has been experienced in the usage of E-sport service across North America as the demand for online gaming and online betting is high in the region due to its technological advancement and major shift toward digital transformation. Also the features of E-sport such as online live streaming of gamming which gives the equivalent feeling of real time gamming boosts the Esports market growth in the upcoming years. For Instance, in May 2021, Chinese smartphone Manufacturer Company partnered with leading E-sport Company that is TJ sports to provide digital advertisement for Chinese league of Wild Rift pro league.

Key industry developments:

• 2022 - Activision Blizzard Inc. unveiled the Murder at Castel Nathriaä.
• 2022 - Activision Blizzard Inc. launched the Wrath of the Lich King Classicä, an original recreation of the World of Warcraftâ. In 2022, in India, LoCo., a live-streaming platform, launched Loco Legends, which is the first non-fungible token platform for esport.
• April 2022 - SK Telecom and the Korean Esports Association (KeSPA) have a three-year sponsorship agreement. As a result of the arrangement, SK Telecom is now KeSPA's official sponsor and may coach the Korean esports team for forthcoming Asian tournaments. During the anticipated term, several market-related efforts and innovations are expected to fuel additional growth.
• March 2022 – Rooter Sports Technologies Private Limited purchased Sky Esports' media rights for all of its intellectual property for a year. The top esports event organizer in South Asia, Sky Esports, owns its intellectual properties. With media rights, Rooter Sports may broadcast matches in India in several languages, including English, Hindi, Bengali, Kannada, Tamil, Malayalam, and Telugu. These M&A operations are anticipated to boost the media rights segment's expansion during the expected term.
• April 2022 – Nodwin Gaming, a games and esports company has teamed with developer Gameloft to organise and execute esports events in India based on Asphalt Racing IPs.
• March 2022 – The Esports Federation of India (ESFI) will host the National Esports Championships 2022 (NESC2022) to choose the Indian representation for the forthcoming Asian Games as part of the AESF Road to Asian Games initiative.
• August 2022 – Tencent and Ouyu Technology launched the first esports-themed hotel in Hangzhou, China. The hotel caters to the gaming community, featuring top-of-the-line hardware, comfortable setups, bootcamps, access to professional live-streaming and even incubation training areas.
Product Launches and Product Expansions:
• Oct-2021: NVIDIA unveiled its next-generation cloud gaming platform providing GeForce RTX 3080-class gaming on GeForce NOW. This platform is available exclusively in a new, high-performance membership tier.
• Oct-2021: Intel introduced the 12th Gen Intel Core processor family with the launch of six new unlocked desktop processors, the 12th Gen Intel Core i9-12900K. This processor has a max turbo boost of up to 5.2 GHz and as many as 16 cores and 24 threads, this processor has opened many opportunities for multi-threaded performance for enthusiast gamers and professional creators.
• Sep-2021: Electronic Arts along with Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) introduced a new EA SPORTS FIFA 22 esports program. This program is estimated to encourage tens of millions of players and viewers. Additionally, this program has featured both 1v1 and 2v2 competitions, wherein players is expected to represent themselves, worldwide recognized esports organizations, real-world football clubs, and their nation in a wide range of FIFA esports events.
• Jan-2020: Activision Blizzard introduced league for Call of Duty, the best-selling first-person-shooter game. This launch is expected to make Activision the biggest operator of professional esports leagues, in which video-game players square off in front of large audiences.
Start-Up Ecosystem
• In 2020, FanClash for Startups was launched by IIM-A alumni Richa Singh and Rishabh Bhansali. FanClash provides a fantasy sports experience for esports. Users can compete against one another in esports in the same manner that they do in traditional fantasy sports like cricket or football. The portal broadcasts tournaments from games like PUBG, Call of Duty, and Valorant, among others, and allows players to establish fantasy teams and compete against one another. FanClash boasts 60,000 active users and 100,000 downloads of its mobile app. So far, the business claims to have disbursed INR 52 lakh in wins.
• Founded in 2019, Ampverse for Startups was launched by Ferdinand Gutierrez. Ampverse's portfolio includes Thai esports companies Bacon and MiTH, as well as Vietnamese team SBTC eSports and 7Sea from India. Its play-to-earn company enables gamers to win prizes by playing games such as Axie Infinity, Townstar, and Spider Tanks, as well as receiving training from professional esports players. Ampverse has collaborated with companies such as Disney, Samsung, McDonald's, Nestlé, Lazada, and Porsche. Ampverse was created as its founders saw a great potential to build a business with IP and goods for gaming lovers that lie at the crossroads of gaming and popular culture, whether it's esports teams, apparel products, or other user experiences.

Major Companies present in the market:
Activision Blizzard Inc, Intel Corporation, NVIDIA Corporation, Valve Corporation, Electronic Arts Inc, Wargaming Public, Rovio Entertainment, alphabet Inc (YouTube), Twitch Interactive, Inc., Facebook, Inc

Considered in this report
• Geography: Global
• Historic year: 2017
• Base year: 2022
• Estimated year: 2023
• Forecast year: 2028

Aspects covered in this report
• Global esport market with its value and forecast along with its segments
• Region-wise esport market analysis
• Various drivers and challenges
• On-going trends and developments
• Top profiled companies
• Strategic recommendation

Regions covered in the report:
• North America
• Europe
• Asia-Pacific
• South America
• Middle-East & Africa
By Revenue Streams:
• Sponsorship
• Media Rights
• Merchandise & Tickets
• Publisher Fees
• Digital
• Streaming

By Device Type:
• Mobile (Smartphone, Tablet)
• PC (Laptop, Desktop)
• Gaming Device (Console, Handheld Devices)
• Other (VR, Smart TV, etc.)

By Game Type:
• Shooter (First-person shooter, Third-person shooter)
• Multiplayer Online Battle Arena (MOBA)
• Real-time Strategy (RTS)
• Fighting
• Other (Role-playing, Racing, Simulators, Sports, Others)

The approach of the report:
This report consists of a combined approach of primary as well as secondary research. Initially, secondary research was used to get an understanding of the market and list out the companies that are present in the market. The secondary research consists of third-party sources such as press releases, and annual reports of companies, analyzing the government-generated reports and databases. After gathering the data from secondary sources primary research was conducted by making telephonic interviews with the leading players about how the market is functioning and then conducting trade calls with dealers and distributors of the market. Post this we have started doing primary calls to consumers by equally segmenting consumers into regional aspects, tier aspects, age groups, and gender. Once we have primary data with us we started verifying the details obtained from secondary sources.

Intended audience
This report can be useful to industry consultants, manufacturers, suppliers, associations & organizations related to the esport industry, government bodies, and other stakeholders to align their market-centric strategies. In addition to marketing & presentations, it will also increase competitive knowledge about the industry.