Magnificent and professional
The eSports tournament - Dota 2 (The International - TI) is currently considered the most valuable eSports tournament on the planet, having broken its own records since 2011. This tournament is organized by the publisher and developer Valve Corporation, bringing together the 18 best teams of the season according to Valve's Dota Pro Circuit scoring system. The tournament's prize money is donated in the form of Crowdfunding directly from the players.
In 2011, TI was the first eSports tournament that the public could buy tickets to watch live, with Valve providing the funding and prize money of $1 million, while Nvidia sponsored the equipment. 10 years later, despite the Covid pandemic, 2021 is the year with the highest prize money in the history of this tournament with a total prize value of more than $40 million and $18.2 million for the winning team alone.
Another tournament that is not inferior to Dota 2 in terms of attraction is the League of Legends World Championship) organized by Riot Games annually in Sweden. In the first year 2011, the total prize of this tournament was only 100,000 USD, but in the second season, this number increased 20 times to 2 million USD. The tournament is held in different locations in different countries and regions every year.
The 2015 League of Legends World Championship Finals in Berlin, Germany
By 2018, the League of Legends finals had attracted 99.6 million viewers, with concurrent viewership peaking at 44 million. Thanks to the huge fan following, League of Legends was included as an official competition alongside seven other eSports disciplines at the 2022 Asian Games.
Billion Dollar Economy
There are many ways to define the eSports industry. According to Newzoo, eSports means a competitive video game, organized semi-professionally or professionally in a defined format (tournament or league) with a certain prize (title or cash) and there is a difference between regular players and participating teams.
Similar to football, eSports revolves around two main factors: players and viewers. As technology increasingly penetrates people's daily life, learning and entertainment, eSports gradually becomes a popular sport. Not only are game developers interested in upgrading the fan experience at live tournaments, but they are also interested in building online channels such as Twitch or Youtube - along with accompanying technologies such as AR, VR, integrated live chat features, etc. to serve the community. E-sports is considered one of the rare fields that can develop strongly in both aspects: offline events and digital experiences.
By the end of 2022, the global esports audience will reach 532 million, of which 49% are regular viewers. This number is expected to increase to 640.8 million by the end of 2025 (Source: Newzoo).
eSports viewership over the years
Esports is becoming very attractive to brands with huge room for growth, according to Newzoo, as 74% of regular eSports viewers are full-time employees and 44% of them are in the high-income group. It is expected that by 2025, global eSports revenue will reach the milestone of 1.86 billion USD.
eSports revenue structure in 2022
To develop, e-sports organizations mainly rely on cooperation with sponsoring brands, so revenue from sponsorship accounts for 63% of global e-sports revenue. However, to minimize the risk of depending on a single source of revenue, businesses are looking to diversify revenue sources through various activities, in which, making money from fans is considered effective and sustainable, similar to traditional sports such as football, tennis, basketball. Specifically, the organizing unit will sell tickets to tournaments, sell items (offline or online), loyalty programs, ... to attract viewers.
For example, sportswear brand PUMA is collaborating with many e-sports units to launch and sell popular fashion products. Or since 2019, Louis Vuitton - the world-famous luxury fashion brand has collaborated with Riot Games to create a box for the League of Legends Championship Cup. Most recently, Riot Games also collaborated with Tiffany & Co to completely redesign the trophy, or the championship ring is a gift from the luxury car brand Mercedes Benz for members, ...
Some esports organizations have even approached the financial markets to seek investment at a more professional level: Guild Esports (UK) and Astralis (Denmark) are both listed companies on major global stock exchanges. VSPN – a Chinese esports tournament organizer – also successfully IPO’d on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in February 2022. ESL and FaceIT also announced in February 2022 a merger with Savvy Gaming Group with a combined value of up to $1.5 billion – making the newly merged company one of the most promising esports empires in the world.
According to Newzoo, eSports revenue in Southeast Asia will grow from 39.2 million USD in 2021 to double in 2024. In particular, Singapore is considered an attractive destination for world eSports when it continuously hosts world eSports tournaments such as Free Fire World Series, M2 World Championship (Mobiles Legends Bang Bang game), and in 2022, Singapore is also the first Southeast Asian country to host the final match of the Dota 2 world championship - The International 11 (the eSports tournament with the most valuable prize pool of tens of millions of USD).
In Vietnam, e-sports have also received great attention from the community. According to Statista, in 2022, Vietnam had 54.6 million gamers, with the total revenue of the mobile game industry reaching 507 million USD. Vietnam also affirmed its capacity when operating the e-sports tournament at the 31st SEA Games very successfully, earning 4 gold medals, 3 silver medals - ranking first in the whole delegation.
Most recently, the Department of Radio, Television and Electronic Information - Ministry of Information and Communications in collaboration with businesses in the industry organized Vietnam Game Festival - Vietnam Gameverse 2023 to build and develop a strong Vietnamese gaming community, anticipating the growth of the world market in general and the Southeast Asian market in particular.
With serious and systematic investment from game developers and publishers, along with open policies in many regions around the world, e-sports has shown its potential to create huge economic value, helping countries diversify their budget revenue sources.
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