CNN Website: What is eSports? A look at an explosive billion-dollar industry
This is a website from CNN that introduces the readers about eSports. It generally answers to the questions about what is eSports, who watches eSports, who plays eSprots, and the money in eSports. It describes eSports as “the world of competitive, organized video gaming”, and about 380 million people worldwide are going to watch eSports this year. It also introduces the function of professional eSports as traditional sports leagues like NFL or NBA. Finally, it talks about the money in eSports. Many brands, video game producers, players, and clubs are included in this big industry. According to the article, eSports revenue will surpass 1 billion dollar worldwide in 2019. The strength of this website is that it asks very general about information on eSports and it is very understandable to those who aren’t familiar with eSports.
CNN: What is eSports? A look at an explosive billion-dollar industry
News Article: Here’s why esports can become a billion-dollar industry in 2019
This article indicates that the future of eSports is more profitable than people think and eSports will become the potential as the next billion-dollar industry. In the article, it mentions that Cloud9, an American eSports organization, has become world’s most valuable eSports organization, and the total of nine Esports teams worldwide are worth at least 100 million dollar. The huge profit has attracted many celebrities from different fields to invest in the eSports industry.
Also, the eSport tournaments has rapid development in recent years. Based on the article, the eSports tournaments are now challenging NBA and NFL in size. According to Riot, the company hosts League of Legends World Championships, the finals attracted 100 million unique viewers, which is closed to the viewership of super bowl from last year.
CNBC: Here’s why eSports can become a billion-dollar industry in 2019
Video: A Brief History of Esports
This video briefly talks about the history of eSports. To know the history of eSports, we have to go back to late 90s when there are few well-established regular tournament scenes and social medias for the eSports players. In the mid 2000s, formerly events are run from once a year to about once a mouth. Until 2010 when the live streaming became much cheaper than before, the rapid development of eSports has come to its climax. During the time period from 2010 to 2017, many professional eSports championships are hold and the professional players are trained as a team in the training camp spending eight to ten hours a day practicing. Also, sports franchises were buying and building teams to play, just like NBA. And the eSports industry is continuous growing now.
Academic Journal Article: eSports and Streaming: Twitch Literacies
This article by Hannah R. Gerber talks about the eSports happened in schools, especially in colleges. Universities in US has already recognized talented players and started offer scholarships. It also talks about the financial market behind eSports. The players can not only earn money from financial reward of competitions, streaming can also allow players earn money from advertising, sponsors, and subscriptions. Article concludes that the eSports has developed rapidly, and the eSports communities are built up with the players and the live streaming. Also the educators should be aware more about this kind of new sports since a large amount of this communities are students.
Website article: An Introduction to the eSports Ecosystem
This article talks more concrete about how the eSports industry makes that huge among of money in details. It divides the process into 4 parts: the publishers, players and teams, tournament and league organizers, and brands and advertisers. The publishers will host and produce coverage for some competitions, and license the games out to external league organizers. Players and teams often provide advertising space for brands. And some brands have their own team to play in the competitions, such as Red Bulls, Roccat, and Team Kinguin. Also, some of the third party organizations run the competitions as well. They also award the winners with money. And when the competitions are holding, online TV and streams can make profit. Finally, the brands and advertisers are included in the industry as well. Just like NBA, players wear jerseys with brands such as nike and adidas, eSports players also have uniforms with brand logos, which produce social media content. Not limited to uniforms, the equipment such as keyboards and mouses are also the way to create advertising.