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3. New rules and strengthen regulations are needed to combat cheating and match fixing.
4. Content rights need to be protected from the fans and streams that infringe a copyright.
5. Many brands and companies need to associate with E-sports.

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At the start of this year, our estimates for esports revenues amounted to $2.22 per Enthusiast annually, an important growth KPI allowing a comparison with traditional sports and giving an indication of the potential size of the Esports Economy. For basketball for instance, this metric stands at $14.00 on a global scale and $19.00 when looking only at NBA fans. With our new Q3 2015 estimates from our Global Growth of Esports Report, the average annual revenue per fan now stands at $2.40. Following a conservative growth scenario, we anticipate this to almost double to $4.63 in 2018. Drawing from a comparison with traditional sports, we highlight five factors that will determine the pace of growth of the esports economy. However, with the unique characteristics of gaming, and esports at its epicenter, the comparison to traditional sports is only partially feasible. Only time will tell if esports follows a traditional route or carves out a new one toward the multibillion dollar business it unmistakably will become.
1 - Diversity of Game Genres

The vast majority of esports titles are PC games that fall into a few major genres, with MOBAs like League of Legends, Smite, Heroes of the Storm and DotA2 being some of the most popular in terms of participation. However, with their complex game play, MOBA games can be difficult for viewers who don't play them to understand and for gamers to master. Would more accessible game genres and segments gain a wider audience and player base?

Riding the wave of ESL One, Counter Strike: Global Offensive, Valve's multiplayer first-person shooter, took over Twitch with the most hours watched for a game in one day, beating out even League of Legends. In August and September of this year, Philippines mobile operator Smart Communications held the Philippine Clash 2015, a Clash of Clans tournament that has set records as the largest prize pool for a mobile gaming competition in the country. US-based Super Evil Megacorp held its first World Invitational tournament in Korea last summer based on its mobile MOBA Vainglory. Last week, Blizzard announced the creation of a new worldwide esports league for the popular console first-person shooter series Call of Duty. A wide variety of game publishers are boosting esports activities for franchises around which competitive gaming already exists in some shape or form, organized by game enthusiasts themselves.

Challenges: There's a reason MOBAs are currently the respected top dog in esports; many MOBA players see the genre as requiring not only skill, but a higher level of strategy and team play than, say, shooter, sports or mobile games.

2 - Geographic Expansion of Leagues

For esports leagues to tap into bigger advertising budgets, they need to exist on national, regional and global levels as traditional sports does. Few advertisers have a significant global advertising or sponsoring budget, as most marketing money is spent on a local level. Currently, only League of Legends has a structure that resembles this hierarchy, with regional league structures in North-America, Europe, South-East Asia, Oceania and Latin America, and country-based league structures in China, South-Korea and Turkey.

Challenges: Local esport tournaments require support from both local sponsors and sports associations to succeed. While on a global level, esports has received a lot of attention from mainstream media, locally, many tournament organizers still struggle to find parties willing to participate in setting up events. Publishers will have to play a role in connecting local esports activities with the larger regional and global championships.

3 - Regulation of Competitions

Esports has grown beyond the small grass roots venues where small groups of gamers were competing. More and more companies are seeing the potential to make money in esports. Most recently, FanDuel purchased the daily-fantasy startup AlphaDraft, a day after competitor DraftKings announced it was expanding into esports with daily fantasy games for League of Legends. With multimillion dollar prize pools now at stake, and increasing amounts of money being bet on the outcome of these games, new rules and regulations are needed to combat cheating and match fixing.

In an attempt to prevent match fixing, software manipulation and use of performance-enhancing drugs, ESL and some betting companies such as Unikrn have become strong advocates of rules and regulations to prevent and/or detect fixing by tracking all in-game data and betting data and using software to detect any irregularities that indicate dubious activities. Other esports organizations have implemented supportive measures for players themselves.

Wouter Sleijffers, CEO at FNatic, comments from an esports team perspective: "A player's career can involve the pressure of matches and fan expectations, frequent international travel, and in some cases living away from home in another country for long periods of time. An environment like that can place a strain on any person. At Fnatic, our goal is to offer our players the most secure and friendly environment in the industry, with the best supporting organization behind them to help them succeed as teams, grow as individuals, and to develop skills and experience they can use during and after their gaming careers."

Challenges: Regulatory structures have not always been able to keep up with the explosive growth of esports. An incidence with performance-enhancing drugs was inevitable, but how will organizers handle drug testing going forward? Meanwhile, esports is a nonconformist world that may find it difficult to accept strict regulations and authority.

4 - Ownership of Media Rights

One of the larger regulation voids in esports is the current structure around content rights. As of now, it is uncertain who owns the rights to esports content. Games played during events are owned by publishers or the event organizers, while videos made by fans and streams that contain game content are owned by the fans and streamers themselves. Thus far, content rights have not really been a focus for publishers, as fan-generated content has served as free advertising for their games. As direct esports revenues grow, this may change.

Challenges: Local and global media rights for esports are unclear and limit the entry of competitive gaming into traditional media and the amount of money potentially connected to it. This is in contrast with traditional sports, where the sale of broadcasting and media rights is the biggest source of revenue for most sports organizations, generating the funds to finance major sporting events, refurbish stadiums and the continuing development of sports. Of course, nobody owns a sport like baseball or football. The fact that companies like Riot Games own the game that is played makes esports a more complex ecosystem. In the traditional media space, media rights are sold country-by-country, maximizing local and global revenues. For esports, this structure may not be possible for many reasons.

5 - Alignment of Digital & Traditional Media

While competitive gaming would surely benefit from broadcaster advertising and its budgets, esports and traditional media have not yet aligned. Will the all-digital esports world adapt to the traditional media ecosystem or vice versa? Turner Broadcasting and WME/IMG just announced that they will form a Counter Strike: Global Offensive league that will be aired on TBS on Friday nights for 20 weeks in 2016. TBS isn't the first cable network to show interest in esports. ESPN has been increasingly recognizing the legitimacy of competitive gaming as a sport, covering more and more esports events, including a collegiate-level Heroes of the Storm competition ("Heroes of the Dorm"), and Valve's multimillion dollar DotA2 tournament "The International". Earlier this month, ESPN began its search for an esports editor.

Hollywood media and entertainment veteran Rich Melcombe, CEO at Richmel Media & Entertainment, adds: "I'd argue that brands do not understand the value of games, most game companies do not know how to sell advertising, and game ad tech needs to be re-imagined. Where most ad tech companies fail is that they do not try to make an emotional connection with the players or create an environment conducive to advertisers or brands. Advertising has to work for both games and brands - each has a very different agenda. Games also need to take a more integrated media approach and own and connect the media surrounding their games to increase value."

Challenges: Many brands are still reluctant to associate themselves with esports, as prejudices against competitive gaming still abound. These prejudices are often related to the esports audience demographic and the definition of "quality content". In September 2014, ESPN president John Skipper infamously suggested that esports had no place on the network (to which The Game Theorists' MatPat made a great rebuttal). When ESPN2 televised "Heroes of the Dorm" in April 2015, it generated a lot of backlash from viewers on Twitter, including ESPN's own employees.
You can download The 5 Factors Defining the Future of Esports in PDF format here.
Newzoo's Global Growth of Esports Report

The Global Growth of Esports Report is a must have for any company with an interest in esports. This report provides the industry with a much needed overview of the Esports Economy and a realistic estimate of its future potential in terms of viewers, participants and revenue streams. The report contains a mixture of data and input from our Global Esports Audience & Revenue Model and key players within the esports space. We are now also publishing quarterly updates to keep our clients and the industry up to date on the latest trends and developments.

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The 5 Factors Defining the Future of Esports

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At the start of this year, our estimates for esports revenues amounted to $2.22 per Enthusiast annually, an important growth KPI allowing a comparison with traditional sports and giving an indication of the potential size of the Esports Economy. For basketball for instance, this metric stands at $14.00 on a global scale and $19.00 when looking only at NBA fans.

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What things have changed due to           E-sports? (3)

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What things have changed due to           E-sports? (3)

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Fact 6.
Comparison of viewership, revenue between same concept of competition

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How esports changed the game: From media laughingstock to media craze

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What things have changed due to           E-sports? (2)

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What things have changed due to           E-sports? (2)

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Fact 5.
E-sports has a strong influence that could be bad or good.

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Fact 8.                      How much do pro gamers & E-sports players make?  

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Fact 8.                      How much do pro gamers & E-sports players make?  

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The average esports salary is about $60,000.

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It's not a secret anymore that top esports earnings can reach millions of US dollars per year, but did you know that the average esports salary is about $60,000? That might not be surprising, depending upon what you know about esports growth over the past few years.

It could also come as a surprise, if you underestimate the popularity and competition surrounding esports. For more information about Esports as an industry and how to improve your game, check out our in depth article:

In this article, we are going to discuss the following:

How much pro gamers make

What factors a professional gamer salary depends on

How much other careers within the industry can earn

How to get into esports

First of all, let's take a look at some statistics related to pro gamer salaries

How much do esports players make?

Esportsearnings.com reports the following:

Top player of 2017 has earned a prize of $2,436,772.40.

The highest overall esports salary is currently $ 3,626,277.75, earned by Kuro Takhasomi, a Dota 2 player.

The highest earnings by country amount to $72,016,179.71 made by 2,783 players in China.

The highest earnings by age are $31,212,142.96 made by 1,372 22-year-old players.

The highest earnings by players under 18 years old are $2,712,139.14 earned by Dota 2 player Sumail Hassan in 2015.

The highest paid League of Legends player is currently Lee 'Faker' Sang Hyeok with the overall gamer salary of $ 897,818.98.

The highest paid esports players according to earned prizes are Dota 2 players.

Impressive stats, aren't they?

However, please be aware that these numbers are the record numbers and are not related to average salaries - this is the money that they get from tournaments as prizes. Next, we'll take a more detailed look at the pro gamer salaries and see what they actually include.

So how do esports teams make money?

Other careers in Esports that do not involve playing include the following positions:

Host/broadcaster, with an average salary of $700 - $1,000 per broadcast

Coach, with an average salary of $69,000 - $83,750 a year

Journalist, with an average salary of $32,000 a year

Sales and marketing specialist, with an average salary of $90,000 a year

Coordinator, with an average rate of $21 per hour

Social media/community manager, with an average salary of $25,000 a year

Event manager, with an average salary varying from $20,000 to $40,000 a year, depending on the event

If your children are interested in Esports, we will give you a couple of tips and tricks:

At JKCP, we are happy to invite all young gamers to our NSG Academy summer camp in Philadelphia with residential life at Villanova University. N3rd Street Gamers (NSG) is an esports network that serves semi-professional and beginner gamers.

NSG provides the gamer communities with venue space, hardware, tournament administration, and broadcast services.
The camp will help the kids to develop the following important skills:

Motivation

Decision making

Teamwork

Focus

Mental toughness

Productive thinking

Self-confidence

Perceptual-cognitive skills

Personal development

The activities will be as follows:

Mornings will include recreational play with professional instruction.

Afternoons will include both interactive lecture series focusing on career exploration activities and how much do professional gamers make within the ecosystem of esports and tournament training/competition.

The students will have a chance to gain experience in a range of games like DOTA 2, Overwatch, Starcraft, Rocket League, and many more. During each session, the students and instructors will choose their favorite games and train for a final tournament.
Besides, the students will get an insight into industry giants such as:

Riot Games

Tencent

Activision Blizzard

Valve

Electronic Arts

Twitch.tv

So now you know the answer to the questions "how much do gamers make" and "how to get into the industry". Now your task is to support your child on the way to becoming a pro gamer. Contact us today to learn more about our esports training camp .

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How Much Do Pro Gamers & Esports Players Make?

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It's not a secret anymore that top esports earnings can reach millions of US dollars per year, but did you know that the average esports salary is about $60,000? That might not be surprising, depending upon what you know about esports growth over the past few years.

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Fact 10.                   Future of E-sports (1)

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Fact 10.                   Future of E-sports (1)

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According to the article, there are 5 factors of bright future of  E-sports.
1. There are many different kinds of games that people might try.
2. E-sports leagues will be expanded with the larger regional and global championships. To reach the goal, many associations, sponsors, and mainstream media have to support.

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Fact 9.                      Type of E-sports games 

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Fact 9.                      Type of E-sports games 

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Esports are classified into different genres like First-person shooter, fighting games, Real-time strategy, racing, sport games, and multiplayer online battle arena among many others.

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What things have changed due to           E-sports? (1)

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What things have changed due to           E-sports? (1)

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Fact 4.
Development of Esports

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Fact 2.                  History of E-sports   

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Fact 2.                  History of E-sports   

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As technology has developed,  video game industry has grown rapidly as well. The first official video game competition happened in 1972 and now, more people are wanting to be professional video gamers. Nowadays, the mainstream media and some influential TV shows tend to cover the story of E-sports. The growth of    E-sports is getting increased and will be larger by 2020.

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As esports continues to grow in popularity and make its way further and further into the mainstream with televised events on channels like TBS and ESPN, people new to competitive gaming may feel like the sport has "come out of nowhere". This couldn't be further from the truth; esports has origins dating all the way back to the 1970's.

Each passing decade has seen the sport reach new milestones and the future continues to look brighter. Here is a look at the path esports has taken from its modest beginnings to the billion dollar industry that it is today.

The First Signs of Esports

By most accounts, the first official video game competition on record happened at Stanford University on October 19, 1972. That event invited players to compete in a game called Spacewar, a space combat game that was first developed in 1962. Students gathered to compete against each other in this revolutionary game, with the top prize of a one year's subscription of Rolling Stone magazine going to winner Bruce Baumgart.

In 1980, video game competitions hit the mainstream when Atari held the Space Invaders Championship. The event attracted over 10,000 players and helped bring video games out of the shadows as a niche product and firmly into the public's eye.

Building on the Momentum of the Space Invaders Championships

Another significant event in competitive video gaming took place in 1980 when Walter Day created Twin Galaxies, an organization that would record and keeps world records in video gaming. With an organization dedicated to keeping these records and the Guinness Book of World Records honoring them, the race for top scores developed around the world.

Billy Mitchell became well known in the 1980's for his mastery of various arcade games and world records in them including the popular Pac-Man and Donkey Kong arcade cabinet games. This craze caused video games to make their way onto television as shows like Starcade in the United States and First Class in the United Kingdom pitted players against each other in competitive gaming to battle for high scores.

Competitive gaming had worked its way into popular culture in the 1980's, but it really took off in the 1990's when the internet opened up a whole new world of possibilities.

Technology Ushers in New Era of Competitive Gaming

While the Atari had its share of popularity during the 1980's, the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) took the controls, graphics, gameplay and accessibility of video games to a new level. The original NES made its way to North America in 1985, and the Super NES (SNES) was released in 1991. The Sega Genesis came out in 1989, sparking an "arms race" that would lead to video games getting exponentially better in a short period of time.

In addition to making video gaming more accessible to families around the world, Nintendo also helped competitive gaming continue to grow. The Nintendo World Championships ran in 1990 and toured the United States before eventually holding its championship games at Universal Studios in California. Nintendo held another world championship in 1994 to promote the SNES. The world finals of this event were held in San Diego, California.

Events like this one paved the way for much larger video game tournaments towards the end of the decade. PC gaming was on the rise, and the internet made it possible for gamers to face off against each other across the world.

Some of the first esports leagues were founded in the late 1990's including the Cyberathlete Professional League (CPL), the Professional Gamers League, and Quakecon. Games like Quake, Counter-Strike, and Warcraft were featured in events.

The Red Annihilation

One of those Quake events was the Red Annihilation. The Red Annihilation took place in May of 1997 and is considered by many to be one of the first true esports competitions. The internet allowed for over 2000 entrants to face each other in one-on-one competitions in Quake before the field was eventually whittled down to just 16 players.

These 16 players were flown into Atlanta, Georgia, to compete at the Electronic Entertainment Expo at the World Congress Center. This event was viewed by spectators in person and online and received news coverage from newspapers and television networks. Dennis "Thresh" Fong earned the win, etching his place into history and earning the tournament's grand prize; a Ferarri 328 GTS previously owned by Quake programmer John D. Carmack.

Esports Explode into the 21st Century

All of the pieces were in place for esports to take another big step forward in the 2000's. Video games and online gaming continued to grow in popularity. Internet cafes started popping up around the world, giving video game players the opportunity to play multi-player games on high powered PCs they may not have been able to afford in their own homes at the time. This gradually changed to as home computers kept becoming more powerful and less expensive.

In 2006, FUN Technologies held a Worldwide Webgames Championship in which 71 players competed for a $1 million grand prize. This was just one example of esports tournaments and their prize pools growing in the early 2000's. There were just about a dozen tournaments held worldwide in 2000; that number increased over 20-fold by 2010.

After sitting out for much of the esports boom it had helped to create back in the 1990's, Nintendo returned to the scene with the Wii Games Summer 2010. This tournament lasted over a month and garnered over 400,000 participants. It also helped establish Super Smash Brothers for Wii as one of the most popular esports games of its time.

Twitch Brings Competitive Gaming to the Masses

Esports found their way onto television in the United States sporadically in previous decades. In countries like South Korea, it was much more popular on television. But never had the entire world had access to the excitement of competitive gaming as a spectator sport like it did when Twitch was founded.

Hitting the scene in 2011, Twitch gave esports a platform to reach previously unthinkable heights. While competitive gaming was previously mostly just enjoyed by gamers and casual fans, Twitch's online broadcasting of tournaments and events around the world gave anyone with an interest in the sport a chance to dive in. Games like League of Legends (LoL) and Defense of the Ancients 2 (Dota 2) became immensely popular as spectator sports, bringing in millions of unique views on Twitch.

League of Legends World Championships

The first League of Legends World Championship was held in 2011 in Sweden. The event featured a $100,000 prize pool with the first place winners Fnatic taking home the top prize of $50,000.

In 2012, the second LoL World Championships were held at the Galen Center in Los Angeles, California in front of 10,000 fans. Just one year later, the venue in Los Angeles was upgraded to the Staples Center as the finals were played in front of a sold-out crowd. In both of these years, the top prize was $1,000,000.

In 2014, the championship was held in Seoul, South Korea. The Imagine Dragons played at the event and the tournament drew over 40,000 fans in attendance.

The 2016 LoL World Championships brought in a staggering 43 million viewers, with a peak of 14.7 million viewers watching concurrently at one point. These numbers were dwarfed by the event in 2017 which had over 60 million people. Numbers like these outshine viewership totals of the championship events of two of the United States biggest sports leagues, the MLB and the NBA.

The International

While the League of Legends World Championships are an indicator of the growth of esports as a spectator sport, the annual Dota 2 tournament The International is a testament to how massive the sport has become on the financial side.

The very first International was held on August 1, 2011. The top 16 teams in the world were invited to the event, which was the first publicly streamed Dota event. The tournament was broadcast in four different commentary languages and the grand prize for the winner was $1 million.

The grand prize was $1 million again in 2012. Since then, The International has broken its own record for the biggest prize pool in all of esports every year since 2014. The prize for first place ballooned up to $5,028,308 in 2014, $6,616,014 in 2015, $9,139,002 in 2016 and $10,862,683 in 2017. And these are just the top prizes; the prize pools overall have been over double this amount.

The Future of Esports

Esports show no signs of slowing down. In fact, they continue to grow at a massive rate. New leagues like the NBA 2K League and the Overwatch League are enjoying early success. Amazon purchased Twitch for $1 billion in 2014 and has continued to help the platform grow as esports have.

In 2017, the International Olympic Committee acknowledged the massive popularity of esports around the world and left open the possibility that esports could one day be an Olympic sport. As the game continues to grow and gain respect as a real sport among more organizations around the world, the sky is the limit for esports as another turn-of-the-decade boom could be on the horizon.

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As esports continues to grow in popularity and make its way further and further into the mainstream with televised events on channels like TBS and ESPN, people new to competitive gaming may feel like the sport has "come out of nowhere". This couldn't be further from the truth; esports has origins dating all the way back to the 1970's.

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Fact 3.                       Why are the people crazy about E-sports?

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Fact 3.                       Why are the people crazy about E-sports?

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Today, it is reachable to almost everything around the world with just a one device. The people have access to watch the tournament at home, or enthusiastic fans go to arena to see the performance vividly.

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Two teams of five, blasting each other with heavy weapons for 30 minutes: welcome to the sponsorship opportunity that is attracting some of the world's biggest brands, from Intel to Gillette.

Esports, competitive playing of video games, is becoming a prime way for brands to reach twenty-something males - a young, free-spending demographic that can be hard to reach through other channels. Revenues are expected to grow more than 40% to $696 million in 2017 according to market intelligence firm Newzoo - and are predicted to double by 2020.

Andras Papp, a communications manager at Gillette believes the industry is at a tipping point.

"Esports is a rapidly growing industry, and we think it has big potential to develop into a global phenomenon," says Mr Papp. "The structures and bodies of the sports are still in formulation, but I have no doubt that very soon we will see a very organised, well run industry."

Gillette's sponsorship of the Intel Extreme Masters World Championship in Katowice, Poland, has already yielded "very positive" early results in terms of purchase intent as well as brand recognition and recall, he says.

Activision Blizzard

Jaycie 'Gillyweed' Gluck: "As one of only a few female talents in the industry I did often feel separated from the pack"

However, Mr Papp warns esports is still "a very turbulent, quickly changing environment".

Dominic Sacco, content director at the British Esports Association, echoes this, saying "With all these brands getting involved I could certainly ask the question 'could the bubble burst?'."

The biggest money is attached to Dota 2, a game in which two teams of five warriors with names such as Phantom Assassin and Bloodseeker battle to destroy each other's base. The winning team at the 2017 world championships held in Seattle picked up more than $10 million in prize money - more than twice the £3.4 million total collected by Arsenal for their winning 2017 FA cup run.

Yet the lack of diversity at the top of esports is glaring and has the potential of holding the sector back from its full potential.

"There is a serious lack of top tier female talent in esports," says Mr Sacco. "Some people say it is because the games are not marketed that well towards women, other people say it may be because of harassment some girls get online."

Jaycie 'Gillyweed' Gluck is one of a limited number of high profile women within esports. The commentator for the Heroes of the Storm game struggled when first embarking on her esports career.

"As one of only a few female talents in the industry I did often feel separated from the pack even though everyone was very welcoming to me and I still will even sometimes struggle with having 'imposter syndrome'," says Ms Gluck.

She believes that because esports is part of online culture there will always be some level of abuse but "as esports becomes more mainstream and more culturally accepted that is going to have to go down."

More female role models will help in changing perceptions, according to Ms Gluck.

"I don't think it is anything we can instantaneously change but I think over time we will see a lot more representation of genders within esports," she says.

Valve

Europe's 'Team Liquid' took home $10m after winning the international Dota 2 showdown

Three big brands that have plunged into esports

Gillette

Gillette, owned by Procter & Gamble, entered the market with a bang this year through the sponsorship of the world's biggest esports event, the Intel Extreme Masters World Championship in Katowice. Activity included signing up esports superstar Enrique Cedeño, known as "xPeke", as a brand ambassador. He featured in a 30-second film that closely mirrored Gillette ads featuring more traditional sports stars such as Roger Federer. Meanwhile, Gillette offered attendees custom-built razor handles created by 3D printers, alongside grooming sessions.

McDonald's

This summer McDonald's signed an Australia-only deal to become the first commercial partner of the StarCraft 2 World Championship Esports Series. Sponsorship includes naming rights, on-ground activations, and content and branding opportunities. Its Swedish operation created burgers themed after esports team Ninjas in Pyjamas in 2014, while earlier this year it sponsored the US tournament for Madden Bowl, a virtual NFL game.

Intel

Intel is one of the longest-standing major brands in esports and its relationship with ESL stretches back to 2006. It is the headline sponsor of ESL's Extreme Masters World Championship. In the UK it is headline sponsor of the ESL Arena, the esports venue at the EGX gaming conference where it partnered with influencers including Sacriel 42 and past Streetfighter world champion, Ryan Hart. Its stand featured a variety of influencers involved in its global 'world is watching' esports campaign.

Industry and sponsors alike are working hard to remedy the situation with measures including AnyKey, the Intel and ESL-backed diversity organisation.

The most popular esports involve elements of violence. The vast majority of games are 'multiplayer online battle arena' (MOBA) games or other testosterone-filled war games involving strategy or role play. Footballing game FIFA 2017 only just manages to break into the top 30 grossing esports games, while NFL and motor racing-based games fail to do even that.

The International Olympic Committee's top official has suggested virtual football games or other sporting games would be considered for inclusion at future Olympic Games, but those involving gratuitous violence went against Olympic values.

Two aspects the world of real sport that has already come into the virtual world is accusations of match-fixing and substance abuse.

The Major League Gaming (MLG) esports division of games publisher Activision Blizzard is attempting to build the business infrastructure that will make esports a safer investment for brands.

It has created a series of NFL-style city-based franchises for its Overwatch League (a six vs six team-based shooter). The London franchise has been bought by esports organisation Cloud9, while Arsenal's largest shareholder Stan Kroenke has taken on one of the Los Angeles franchises.

Former Fox Sports veteran Pete Vlastelica was hired by Activision to head the MLG division as part of its ambition to create the ESPN of esports.

Mr Vlastelica says the average esports fan is in their early 20s and half the age of traditional sports audiences.

"The average age of an NFL fan has gone up from 40 to 50 in the last decade," says Mr Vlastelica. "I don't necessarily think that is because the content is inherently unattractive to young people, a lot of it has to do with the fact that that content is on television and young people don't watch much television."

Intel began its partnership of ESL in 2006 and Steve Shakespeare, EMEA enterprise solutions director at Intel, says the company is in esports for the "long term" because it views it as a huge opportunity.

"I was at this Katowice event and when you sit in the stadium and have twenty thousand people cheering and doing Mexican waves you suddenly realise that yes, people are sat next to a PC but the excitement and energy and passion is not dissimilar to a classic sporting event," says Mr Shakespeare. "What I love is the enthusiasm and the passion."

Who's watching?

Almost 4 million people in the UK have watched esports

Some 21% of 18-24s in Britain have watched esports, compared to less than 1% of people aged over 55.

Among of Chinese adults with online access, 45% have watched esports
Matthew Chapman is a freelance journalist specialising in retail, technology and marketing. His work has been featured by The Guardian, Motherboard, The Sun, Daily Mail, Bloomberg, Campaign and Retail Week. He also works as a researcher for Channel 4's consumer affairs programme Supershoppers. This article is independent editorial content.

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Why esports is attracting global brands (and what it has to do to get more) | Raconteur | The Times & The Sunday Times

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Two teams of five, blasting each other with heavy weapons for 30 minutes: welcome to the sponsorship opportunity that is attracting some of the world's biggest brands, from Intel to Gillette. Esports, competitive playing of video games, is becoming a prime way for brands to reach twenty-something males - a young, free-spending demographic that can be hard to reach through other channels.

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Fact 7.                           E-sports causes extreme health issues?

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Fact 7.                           E-sports causes extreme health issues?

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Many gamers live with mental & physical health issues. According to a professional gamer, he needs to endure the pain and a huge pressure whenever he performs on the stage and even in usual day.

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Some of the world's top esports players work as many as 80 hours a week, with much of the time spent on marathon video-game sessions that end up taking physical and mental tolls. According to a new documentary by CBSN Originals, this practice, known as "the grind," is causing many professional gamers to retire by their mid-20s.

In Esports: The Price of the Grind, one high-profile gamer, Indy Halpern, says that he sometimes practices for eight hours a day, which often leads to lower-back and wrist pain. (As in other professional sports, a serious injury can derail someone's gaming career.)

Halpern also outlined the mental risks: "You always have that pressure on your shoulders that you have to perform," he says. Doug Gardner, a sports psychology consultant and director of player performance for the esports team Immortals, recalled seeing "emaciated" players exhausted after relentless gameplay.

Early retirement by video gamers is not a new phenomenon. In 2014, the gaming publication Polygon reported that it was normal for esports players to retire in their mid-20s because youth is a key determinant of excellent motor skills and reaction times-two essential qualities for a top gamer.

But the rise of social media and the esports industry's rapid growth is exacerbating the tolls of professional gaming, with mental stress leading gamers to burn out earlier. Not only is there more money at stake, but more sets of eyes-roughly 400 million of them based on global esports audience estimates-are watching the industry's main assets: The players. As ESPN put it, every wrong move is "toxically scrutinized on Reddit, Twitter, and other online forums." And it's hard for competitive gamers to walk away from their online devices and avoid the blowback. The same place where they succeed or fail professionally, and get critiqued for it, is also their main way of communicating with the world outside of work.

For the wellbeing of players-and also because a gamer who cannot play can damage the performance of the entire team-esports team owners are working on measures to support mental health. For instance, members of the Dallas Fuel, who compete in the Overwatch league, are now allowed to visit home mid-season. They also have access to a dedicated sports psychologist. FemmeFerocity, a team that plays Heroes of the Storm, highlights in its core values the importance and "competitive advantage" of good mental health.

Whether or not these practices might help players from burning out quicker remains to be seen. But the pipeline of young players entering the profession will remain: There are more than 100 high schools across the US and Canada with North American Scholastic Esports Federation clubs, and increasingly more US colleges are offering scholarships to varsity video-game players. And then there's the money. According to gaming research firm Newzoo, revenue from the esports industry reached $660 million in 2017, and is forecast to climb to $1.5 billion by 2020.

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Esports players are burning out in their 20s

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Some of the world's top esports players work as many as 80 hours a week, with much of the time spent on marathon video-game sessions that end up taking physical and mental tolls. According to a new documentary by CBSN Originals, this practice, known as "the grind," is causing many professional gamers to retire by their mid-20s.

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Fact 1.                     What is E-sports?  

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Fact 1.                     What is E-sports?  

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E-sports is a form of competition using video games. Most commonly, esports takes the form of organized, multiplayer video game competitions, particularly between professional players, individually or as teams.