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So many supports in the E-sports and they generate a lot of money.

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Esports will generate more than £1bn in global revenue and almost double its audience to nearly 600 million people by 2020, forecasters predict.

Esports is organised, competitive computer gaming and can be staged in front of a live audience and millions more online.

"It has the potential to become one of the top five sports in the world," said Peter Warman of esport analysts Newzoo.

French football club Paris St-Germain has created an esports team.

Some English clubs - including Manchester City - employ professional gamers.

Esports generated $493m (£400m) in revenue in 2016, with a global audience of about 320 million people.

Prize money of $93.3m (£76m) was won last year, with the winning team at the League of Legends world championship - the biggest esports event - sharing a pot of $1m (£810,000).

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Why are sports clubs buying esports teams?

Paris St-Germain moved into gaming in October, creating its own esports franchise and signing three of the world's leading gamers.

PSG wants to establish the team in one of esports' most iconic games - League of Legends - as the club tries to raise its global profile, particularly targeting the US and Asian markets.

As part of State of Sport week, BBC Sport was given behind-the-scenes access to PSG's gaming house.

"Esport for us is a way to find a new fan of the brand, not necessarily focus on the soccer," Fabien Allegre, PSG's director of merchandising and brand diversification, told BBC Sport.

"The idea is to bring the club to a large number of people who don't know anything about football."

In the long run I'm pretty sure esports can grow as big as football"

Bora Kim, 24PSG's esports team manager

Manchester City and West Ham have already signed players of the Fifa football game to represent them, but no British club has set up a dedicated esports team.

Allegre believes it is the "future" for football clubs and predicts the creation of an online Champions League-style competition between clubs that own esports franchises.

"It's more than a marketing stunt," says Warman. "Football clubs see this opportunity as a strategic part of their franchise. Sports clubs are now dependent on revenues that come from areas outside of their league so this is their marketing objective.

"They are only dipping their toes into it right now but their expectations are long-term and very large.

"Esports is completely global, with hundreds of millions of viewers, so it would take their brand across the globe."

Rory Cellan-Jones: Is this the moment esports comes of age?

What makes a professional esports player?
PSG players Thomas 'Kirei' Yeun, Etienne 'Steve' Michels, and Hampus 'Sprattel' Abrahmsson Thuring

Diet: "You're never going to operate well if you're living off junk food and sleeping five hours a night."

Have fun: "Even though the job is very professional and there's lots of responsibilities as a team, it's always a blast."

Fitness: "The image of the unhealthy gamer in his room at night, it's kind of not true for professional gamers because you actually need a good work ethic."

Focus: "Most people tend to be a bit ragey, but you should try to hold it and focus on yourself."

Dream big: "At first my parents weren't too supportive, they didn't understand what it meant to be a gamer, but they quickly understood it could be a real career for me."

How do you create a professional esports team?
Bora Kim, PSG esports team manager

Personalities: "It's like building a puzzle - you have to put all the pieces together."

Communication: "Don't be afraid because if you don't talk then we will never solve the issues."

Teamwork: "We try to always prioritise teamwork over an individual trying to be a star."

Preparation: "When I was an amateur I had to bring my computer and everything... now as a player you don't have to worry about anything else than just your performances."

Where is the money coming from?

Sponsorship is the biggest revenue stream in esports, bringing in much more than is raised by the media, advertising, merchandise and ticketing.

Newzoo predicts income will treble in the next four years, valuing esports as a $1.49bn (£1.21m) industry by 2020.

"The reason companies are investing in this is because they want more eyeballs and time to promote their product so people will spend more money on their games," said Warman.

"Gaming has been the favourite pastime of the younger generation for a long time and esports branching out to live events is like becoming comparable to [traditional] sports.

"Brands now have a way to reach this audience that previously was so hard to reach, because gaming is transforming into something they understand. They can sponsor it and advertise so brands and other companies are jumping on this like crazy.

"We are going to see a lot of parallels that we see now in sports and that will take it to the next level."

So how big can esports get?

"Considering an audience of about 160 million is watching esports frequently and another 160 million watch big championship games, it already compares to medium-tier sports," says Warman.

"So it can match the size of, say, tennis and field hockey, while it's also coming very close to basketball and the audience size is becoming very comparable to individual sports.

"In terms of revenue, it is still dwarfed by sports but it is only a question of time to when that will change.

"If you see it as an individual sport it has the potential to become one of the top five sports in the world. That will take maybe five years."

Newsround: What is esports?

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Who are esports fans?

"Young digital natives are not really into sports," claims Warman. "The majority of these esports enthusiasts are aged between 20 and 35.

"That is quite surprising because you would expect teenagers to be the majority figures in this group. But the viewing audience is generally older.

"When it comes to gender, there are more women that watch esports than you would expect - about 25% of that audience is female. That may surprise people who think gaming is for a predominantly male audience."

According to Newzoo, in 2016, the total esports audience in the UK reached about 6.5 million, with 3.1 million esports enthusiasts. The vast majority of these are males (69%) and aged 21-35.

BBC Sport was also given access to the Intel Extreme Masters in Katowice, hosting the world championships in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO).

"Fans of esports are normal guys," one spectator told BBC Sport. "Everyone has some hobbies in their real life, not only playing.

"Sports have an older public. My dad never watches Counter-Strike, but I'm never watching tennis or something that he likes."

Another fan said: "Esports is a new experience, especially for younger people to see their heroes in real life."

Will UK clubs follow PSG's example?

Diego Gigliani runs Manchester City's esports team as the senior vice-president for media and innovation for the City Football Group.

Keiran 'Kez' Brown is City's professional Fifa player, with the club feeling a football game is a more "authentic way" of moving into esports.

"We can't overlook the fact the way we are participating in esports is in a relatively small space compared to the actual category of esports," says Gigliani.

"The real big esports titles are things like League of Legends, DOTA 2, Counter-Strike, and that's where the massive audiences are going to - that's where people see the commercial opportunities.

"Have we considered those spaces? We have. We've felt that for the time being the right place to start was with Fifa and see how much we learn and where that takes us next."

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Three training sessions a day: The life of a gamer
'Sprattel', a 22-year-old Swede, is part of Paris St-Germain's professional League of Legends team.
11am: "Wake up and get ready for practice by playing games on your own or going through replay reviews."

Noon: "Lunch before team practice."

3pm: "Team practice begins. You play three games and that ends about 6pm."

6pm: "Dinner. You have an hour's break and discuss the games."

7pm: "You play three more games and that finishes about 10-11pm."

10pm-11pm: "You play on your own, watch games or see how other people play - it is free time but mostly it is us playing until the early hours of the morning."

2am-3am: "We go to bed. Then repeat it."

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What next for esports?

Warman believes the industry needs to professionalise and set up an organised structure of governance.

He also predicts a big battle between the world's leading sportswear giants to get their brand on the jerseys of esports heroes.

And an esports World Cup?

"We already have world championships for individual games," says Warman. "The question is are these games going to be put together to create one big World Cup event?

"I think we will see events of a similar size to the World Cup of football. It will take a year or two to structure that. We will need to have qualifying rounds by country and by region for that.

"But this will ultimately make up a World Cup event watched by a billion people."

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Esports 'set for £1bn revenue and 600 million audiences by 2020'

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Esports will generate more than £1bn in global revenue and almost double its audience to nearly 600 million people by 2020, forecasters predict. Esports is organised, competitive computer gaming and can be staged in front of a live audience and millions more online.

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Industry employees earn an average annual compensation of $89,781; Total paying for all workers directly employed in the computer and video bgame industry was $2.9 billion in 2009; The industry directly and indirectly employs more than 120,000 people in the United States.
This means the economy will continue to benefit from the profits of video games, and the U.S will have an increase in employment.

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"Despite a challenging economic environment, the entertainment software industry continues to grow and create new jobs at a rapid pace," said Michael D. Gallagher, president and CEO of the ESA in a statement. "The entertainment software industry is well positioned to sustain these economic and social contributions well into the future."

California has seen the most benefits from gaming's growth - not surprising since so many companies, including Electronic Arts and Activision are based there. Entertainment software companies added roughly $2.1 billion to the state's economy and grew by a real annual rate of 11.4 percent from 2005 to 2009, according to the report. During that same period, the state's overall economy had negative growth.

(Ironically, it's California that is leading the charge to regulate game sales, which could have a devastating effect on the industry. The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments on the case in its October session.)

Texas has the second highest amount of gaming personnel (the state is a favorite home for development studios, including id Software, Gearbox and Disney property Junction Point Studios). Washington, home of Microsoft and Nintendo of America ( , is the third most popular state for game employers.

The numbers could shift in years to come, though, as many states have started to offer economic incentives to lure game makers. Virginia, for instance, has seen game-related employment jump 77 percent from 2005 to 2009.

Recent incentives are proving to be quite effective, too. 38 Studios recently announced plans to relocate from Boston to Rhode Island, after officials in that state agreed to provide the developer with a $75 million loan guarantee.

A burgeoning game developer moving to another state might not sound like much at first - but when that company is owned and operated by former Red Sox ace pitcher Curt Schilling, it shows just how big a draw those incentives can be.

Qu estions? Comments? TechCheck@cnbc.com

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Video Games Impact the Economy More Than You Think

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A new study from Economists Incorporated reports that the video game industry added $4.95 billion to the U.S. Gross Domestic Product last year-and the entertainment side of the software world is growing considerably faster than other segments of the economy.

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E-sports to have global audience of 600 million by 2030.

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Statistics have proven that with younger and newer generations, video games were more appealing, therefore having a huge impact in social and economic aspects of life.

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Video games bring entertainment to all, from grandpa playing video poker on his phone to a teenager on her Xbox. Sixty-seven percent of US households own a device that is used to play video games, according to the Entertainment Software Association (ESA). While each generation has their own way of doing things, how they play video games is not as different as you might think.

Gen Z Teenagers (Age 13-17)

Generation Z represents 14 percent of mobile gamers, according to a recent report by Tapjoy, and 27 percent of all gamers, according to the (ESA). This digital native generation has never experienced the world without video games-a fact that that teenagers take full advantage of.

Pew Research found that 81 percent of teens age 13-17 either have or have access to a game console such as PlayStation, Xbox or Wii. Of those, 91 percent of teen boys own game consoles and 70 percent of teen girls say they have or have access to a console.

A study by YouGov found that video games were on the top of the "coolness scale" for teenagers, especially boys. So, what games do teens think are "lit?"

According to YouGov, the most popular video games with Gen Z are (in no particular order):

Millennials (Age 18-34)

According to Tapjoy, this segment represents 21 percent of mobile gamers and the largest segment ( 29 percent) of all gamers, per the ESA.

A Pew Research study found that 67 percent of respondents age 18-29 play video games, but only 22 percent of them say the term "gamer" describes them well. Men in this age group are more than three times as likely as their female counterparts to identify as gamers (33 percent versus nine percent).

Millennials play the most on mobile and tablets, according to a recent study by PayPal and SuperData, followed by PlayStation 4. The study also found that millennials prefer to play games in the action, shooter and strategy categories above all others.

Gen X (Age 35-54)

According to the ESA, the average gamer is 35 years old. This generation remembers when playing video games cost a quarter and home game consoles had wood paneling. Gen X represents 18 percent of all gamers (ESA) and 19 percent of mobile gamers, according to Tapjoy.

After mobile and tablets, consumers age 35 and over prefer to play on a PC, PayPal and SuperData found. This demographic's favorite genres include action, puzzle and casino.

A study by Pew Research found that while playing video games is especially popular among young adults, a substantial number of older adults play video games as well. More than half (58 percent) of those ages 30-49 play video games, Pew found. Among this age group, men are twice as likely to identify as gamers than their female counterparts (15 percent versus seven percent).

Baby Boomers (Age 55+)

Consumers 55 and over represent 26 percent of all gamers, the ESA reports. At 23 percent, this age group represents the largest mobile gaming segment according to Tapjoy's report The Changing Face of Mobile Gamers: What Brands Need to Know.

Despite this feat, just four percent of Americans over the age of 50 feel that the term "gamer" describes them well, Pew Research found. Labels aside, 40 percent of those ages 50-64 and 25 percent of those 65 or older play games.

While each generation has its own way of enjoying game sessions, two things remain the same: every age group plays mostly on mobile, and video games are for everyone.

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How Different Generations Play Video Games, From Platforms To Genres | AList

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Video games bring entertainment to all, from grandpa playing video poker on his phone to a teenager on her Xbox. Sixty-seven percent of US households own a device that is used to play video games, according to the Entertainment Software Association (ESA).

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If you like to make a video game but it is not easy to do. you need the advance skills and get training so it can be easier to get a job.

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Major video games that were huge sellers have really contributed to the economy, the more they sell, the better the economy survived.

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Early in 1962, a young MIT student was on his way home in the nearby town of Lowell, Massachusetts.

As Peter Samson stepped off the train and gazed up at the stars above, a meteor streaked across the heavens. Mr Samson reflexively grabbed for a game controller that wasn't there, and scanned the skies, wondering where his spaceship had gone.

Mr Samson's brain had grown out of the habit of looking at the real stars. He was spending way too much time playing Spacewar!

His near hallucination was the precursor of countless digital fever dreams to come - that experience of drifting off to sleep dreaming of Pac Man, or rotating Tetris blocks, or bagging a rare Pokemon Jigglypuff.

In 1962, that ability of a computer to yank our Pavlovian reflexes and haunt our sleep would have been unimaginable to anyone but Peter Samson and a few of his hacker friends.

They were avid players of Spacewar!, the first video game that mattered - the one that opened the door to a social craze, a massive industry, and shaped our economy in more profound ways than we realise.

50 Things That Made the Modern Economy highlights the inventions, ideas and innovations that helped create the economic world.

It is broadcast on the BBC World Service. You can find more information about the programme's sources and listen online or subscribe to the programme podcast.

Before Spacewar!, computers were intimidating, vast and expensive: large grey cabinets in purpose-built rooms, closed off to all but the highly trained.

Computing was what banks and corporations and the military did.

But at the beginning of the 1960s, at MIT, new computers were being installed in a more relaxed environment.

They didn't have their own rooms but were part of the laboratory furniture.

Students were allowed to mess around with them.

The term "hacker" was born, meaning not the modern malevolent cracker of security systems, but someone who would experiment, cut corners and produce strange effects.

Video revolution

At the same time, MIT ordered a new kind of computer: the PDP-1.

It was compact - the size of a large fridge - and relatively easy to use. It was powerful. And it communicated not through a printer, but through a high precision cathode ray tube - a video display.

When a young researcher called Steve "Slug" Russell heard about the PDP-1, he and his friends began plotting the best way to show off its capabilities.

They had been reading a lot of science fiction and dreaming of a proper Hollywood space opera.

But Star Wars was two decades away, so they plumped for the best possible alternative: Spacewar! - a two-player video game that pitted spaceship captains against each other in a photon-torpedo-powered duel to the death.

There were two spaceships - just a few pixels outlining the ships - and the players could spin, thrust, or fire torpedoes.

Economic legacy

Other enthusiasts soon joined in, making the game smoother and faster, adding a star with a realistic gravitational pull, and cobbling together special controllers from plywood, electrical toggles, and bakelite. They were hackers, after all.

In one way, the economic legacy of Spacewar! is obvious.

As computers became cheap enough to install in arcades, and then in the home, the games industry blossomed.

One of the early hits, Asteroids, owed a clear debt to Spacewar! - with the realistic-seeming physics of a spaceship that rotated and thrusted in a zero-gravity environment.

Computer games now rival the film industry for revenue. They're becoming culturally important, too. Lego's Minecraft tie-in jostles for popularity with the company's Star Wars and Marvel sets.

But beyond the money that we spend on them, games affect the economy in a couple of ways.

First, virtual worlds can create real jobs.

Virtual sweatshops

One of the first people to make this case was an economist named Edward Castronova.

In 2001, Mr Castronova calculated the gross national product per capita of an online world called Norrath - the setting for an online role-playing game, EverQuest.

Norrath wasn't particularly populous - about 60,000 people would be logged in at a time, performing mundane tasks to accumulate treasure they could use to buy enjoyable capabilities for their characters.

Except, some players were impatient.

They bought virtual treasure from other players, on sites such as eBay, for real money, which meant other players could earn real money for doing mundane work in Norrath.

The wage, reckoned Mr Castronova, was about $3.50 (£2.70) an hour - not much for a Californian but an excellent rate if you happened to live in Nairobi.

More from Tim Harford
How a razor revolutionised the way we pay for stuff TV Dinner: The hidden cost of the processed food revolution How the lift transformed our cities How air conditioning changed the world
Before long, "virtual sweatshops" sprang up from China to India, where teenagers ground away on the tedious parts of certain games, acquiring digital short-cuts to sell to more prosperous players who wanted to get straight to the good stuff.

And it still happens: some people are making tens of thousands of dollars a month on auction sites in Japan, just selling virtual game characters.

For most people, though, virtual worlds aren't a place to earn money, but to enjoy spending time.

Even as Mr Castronova was writing about tiny Norrath, 1.5 million South Koreans were playing in the virtual world of the game Lineage.

Then came FarmVille on Facebook, blurring a game with a social network, mobile games such as Angry Birds or Candy Crush Saga, and augmented reality games such as Pokemon Go.

By 2011, the game scholar Jane McGonigal estimated that more than half a billion people worldwide were spending serious amounts of time - almost two hours a day, on average - playing computer games. A billion or two is within easy reach.

And that brings us to the final economic impact. How many of those people are choosing virtual fun over boring work for real money?

Unemployment puzzle

A decade ago, I saw Edward Castronova speak in front of a learned audience of scientists and policy wonks in Washington DC. "You guys are already winning in the game of real life," he told us. "But not everyone can."

And if your choice is a Starbucks server or a star-ship captain - what, really, is so crazy about deciding to take command in an imaginary world?

Mr Castronova may have been on to something.

In 2016, four economists presented research into a puzzling fact about the US labour market: the economy was growing strongly, unemployment rates were low, and yet a surprisingly large number of able-bodied young men were either working part-time or not working at all.

More puzzling still, while most studies of unemployment find that it makes people thoroughly miserable, against expectations the happiness of these young men was rising.

The researchers concluded that these men were living at home, sponging off their parents, and playing videogames.

These young men were deciding they didn't want to be a Starbucks server. Being a spaceship captain was far more appealing.

Tim Harford writes the Financial Times's Undercover Economist column. 50 Things That Made the Modern Economy is broadcast on the BBC World Service. You can find more information about the programme's sources and listen online or subscribe to the programme podcast.

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The surprising ways video games have shaped the economy

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Early in 1962, a young MIT student was on his way home in the nearby town of Lowell, Massachusetts. As Peter Samson stepped off the train and gazed up at the stars above, a meteor streaked across the heavens. Mr Samson reflexively grabbed for a game controller that wasn't there, and scanned the skies, wondering where his spaceship had gone.

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Today, the video game industry has a huge effect on the economy through the sales of major systems plus games, like Call of Duty: Black Ops, over $650 US million in 1st 5 days its game's first 5 days, setting a five-day global record for a movie, book or video game.

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Activision claimed this morning that Call of Duty: Black Ops took in $650 million in five days, surpassing the company's previous record-setting, $550 million launch week with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. According to CEO Bobby Kotick, " Call of Duty has become the first entertainment property in history to set five-day launch records for two consecutive years across all forms of entertainment."

Beyond the fiscal fidelity provided to Activision, Call of Duty has helped Microsoft to trumpet new records for Xbox Live. The service reportedly broke a record of 2.6 million unique players in-game on the November 9 launch day, with 5.9 million multiplayer hours logged that same day.

Updates are available now for both the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions of the game. For all the declassified patch intel, check out the Black Ops forums.

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Black Ops grosses $650M in five days, first updates live

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Activision claimed this morning that Call of Duty: Black Ops took in $650 million in five days, surpassing the company's previous record-setting, $550 million launch week with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. According to CEO Bobby Kotick, " Call of Duty has become the first entertainment property in history to set five-day launch records for two consecutive years across all forms of entertainment."

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According to Newzoo’s Global Games Market Report.
Video gaming is definitely going to increase, become much more popular, profitable, more related to smart phones, and be more interactive with daily activities.

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As technology advanced, video games become more realistic and sold a lot more because they are excited to see how video games develop.

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People are allowed to trade and pay real money for upgrading their character and making it neat.

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The Rise of Videogame Economies | Off Book | PBS Digital Studios