ESPORTS REVENUE TO EXCEED $1 BILLION

According to Newzoo’s 2020 Global Esports Market Report, esports revenue is expected to grow to $1.1 billion this year, a 15% increase over 2019’s figures of $950.6 million. The annual report now enters its sixth year and spans 100 pages of analytical data on esports growth. This will be the first time esports revenue exceeds $1 billion (previously the figure has been passed, but it included platform revenues).

Sponsorship’s the word: The vast majority of revenue comes from major sponsorships, such as Nike signing a four-year deal with China’s League of Legends competition (LPL), and Excel Esports forming an agreement with British Telecommunications. Media rights and sponsorship is expected to reach $1.2 billion by 2023, approximately 76% of the total revenue of esports. China holds the lion’s share of the market with $385.1 million, followed by North America at $252.6 million and Western Europe at $201.2 million.

Viewership trends: This year the report expects to see significant growth with regard to viewership. Throughout 2020, esports is expected to reach a global audience of 495 million people, an increase of 11.7% over 2019. The League of Legends Worlds Championship was the biggest tournament of 2019 with more than 105 million live hours watched on streaming platforms like Twitch and YouTube. Overwatch League, however, was the most-viewed league with 104 million live hours watched. Mobile esports has seen the biggest growth in viewership going from 15.3 million to 98.5 million hours watched in 2019.

I knew it’d pay off to stream stuff constantly on 10 browser tabs.

Ryan Goodrich

Ryan has been writing since long before he could even write. He's written resumes, software user guides, consumer electronic reviews, and myriad web content spanning a variety of industries. But now he's writing about video games, which is much more interesting.

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