Take a look and enjoy! With the visual below, we’ll approach electronic sports – also known as esports – which gives us a lot to talk about.
PS: We suggest that you explore the visual at the “Press Start” button and discover the world of esports from there.
The esports visual explained
As you might notice from the visual, we’ve decided to approach the Spanish esports market from a commercial point of view. Spain houses many great esports clubs that are currently competing on an international level, making it an interesting but complex market to analyze.
Where most boomers are stuck with the image of gamers being geeky, fast-food eating, and antisocial individuals playing games all night long, Generation Z looks up to them like they are future rockstars.
The fact is, esport is – just like all sports – very demanding of its players on a level which can be compared to other sport disciplines. They are subject to physical and mental training, are expected to be a role model to their followers and fans, and show a winners’ mentality with every match they play.
Esports has an audience of 6 million viewers in Spain and generates over 1 billion dollars annually worldwide, 175 million of which is generated via advertising.
Let’s not forget one of the fundamentals of esports: the fact that it’s being played in a digital context, making it less subject to the impact of COVID-19. Face-to-face battles are nice to have, not need to have… and the audience can tune in via Twitch.
This makes it the only type of sport that is still possible, which in its turn means that it will become a mainstream sport in no time. The proof is the many Fifa, Formula 1, NBA, and other esports alternatives that are currently being set-up around the world.
It’s not only an industry that is about to dominate the mainstream audience, it’s also an industry that already has an audience of 6 million viewers in Spain and generates over 1 billion dollars annually worldwide; 175 million of which is generated via advertising.
The numbers explained
While researching the overwhelming topic of esports, we have found that all sources acknowledged the great state of the industry, and the bright future it is heading into. However, a lack of data about the status in Spain prevented us from deep dive into the local esports sector, which made it a bit more difficult to map out the growth of the current ecosystem.
The fact that esports has got a close relationship between the world of leisure based gaming and professional (or semi-professional) video game competitions, results in somewhat confusing figures when we tried to obtain accurate information about esports.
Another interesting fact we’ve stumbled upon during our research – and something we already realized thanks to our experience as gamers – is the impact fans have on the games. It’s something that hasn’t been researched much so we weren’t able to include as much socio-demographic or economic details about them. The fact is that they create the same sense of togetherness as other sports can do.
We’ve based our research on numbers found in the “Global esports market report”, “Global esports summit” and information provided by Garaje Insights.