As technology and connectivity leap forward, the Esports industry surges, captivating 200 million enthusiasts globally in 2017, with predictions of a rise to 300 million by 2020. This explosive growth, powered by its high interactivity and brand engagement, eclipses traditional sports, offering unique intimacy between viewers, players, and sponsors. With a projected market size of $180 billion in 2021, Esports is not just a game; it’s a burgeoning economy, ripe with investment opportunities and a magnet for global tech giants and consumer brands alike.
General Information And The Number of People in The Industry
The advancement in technology and the Internet increases both the accessibility and variety of games. This makes the digital and mobile game industry grow steadily.
According to Oyunder’s figures, the number of Esports trackers, calculated as 120 million people worldwide in 2015, reached almost 200 million people in 2017. It is estimated that this number will approach 300 million people in 2020. Turkey is the second sport after football in position to get the Esports is expected to strengthen its position in this area.
The fact that E-sports offers such a high level of interaction compared to traditional sports plays an important role in the that it attracts such interest by both the audience and the sponsor brands. With live chat, contests and special content for followers, Esports has the possibility of intimacy and experience with viewers, teams and players that do not available in traditional sports with this way sponsor brands are also offered much higher visibility opportunities.
Economic Growth of The Industry
One of the most interesting areas of the last period is the game industry. The size of the global game market, which was around 138 billion dollars in 2018, is estimated to reach 180 billion dollars in 2021.
According to the Newzoo report, at the end of 2019, the size of the global Esports economy will increase to $ 1.1 billion, with an annual increase of about 27 percent. A large percentage of this economy, such as 69 percent, will come directly from sponsorship deals and indirectly from media rights and content licenses. The ticket and product consumption of Esports fans will reach $ 103 million.
The Newzoo report also reveals that the number of Esports enthusiasts is growing rapidly. The audience, which has reached 252 million today, will reach 453 million in 2022. 201.2 million of this audience will be fans of Esports, and 252.6 million will be occasional followers. The average revenue per fan is expected to reach $ 6.02 by 2022, as the E-sports market will continue to mature and local events, leagues and media rights deals will continue to increase. In 2022, total revenue will reach $ 1.8 billion.
The Situation In Turkey And The Investment of Esports Industry
Esports including web and digital revenues derived from all games played on mobile platforms which 878.8 million dollars in Turkey, ranks 18th in the world in this area.
Turkey is the annual volume of e-sports market is stated to be approximately $ 10 million at the end of 2019. Compared to the Global yet share very little, though, Esports field promising potential in Turkey. Currently, many teams, especially Fenerbahçe, Galatasaray, Beşiktaş, Bursaspor and Trabzonspor, have entered the E-sports competition with their professional teams.
While technology brands take the lead in e-sports sponsorship, brands from different sectors such as retail, online services, food and beverage have also seen the potential here and increased their investments. The biggest supporters so far have been technology companies, including Microsoft, Samsung and Intel, but growing consumer brands invest in Esports like McDonald’s, Coca-Cola and Nike, all contributing to AED 1.5 billion of estimated advertising and sponsorship revenue. only in 2017. The rest of the revenue comes from investment from game publishers (426 million this year), media rights (350 million), and ticket and commercial sales (2335 million).
Ingame Group, which has the highest investment volume in this field, aims to invest 10 million TL in the field of Esports by the end of this year. This figure will increase to 13 million TL next year. Vodafone Turkey deputy chief executive officer Engin Aksoy said they have invested a total of approximately 13 million worth my investment until the end of 2022, he said they plan to reach 30 million to E-sports market so far. Meriç Eryürek, Gaming and Esports Fair Brand and Marketing Manager of Gaming Istanbul, states that they offer the opportunity to reach 100 thousand visitors, 4.6 million followers and 23.9 million players to companies that invest and want to invest in the Esports and game market.
Considering that it has a large young fan base, Esports has great potential in terms of reaching the target audience for companies and brands. For this reason, companies are included in Esports through different projects, especially sponsorships.
Ask me, even though it is an industry that is very open to growth, investors still need to develop a careful strategy on this issue.
Mckisey & Company’s Study Shows That Esports Industry is Rapidly Spreading and Transforming into a Strong Economy
Global management consultancy firm McKinsey & Company has published a special study for the development of the industry within the scope of its research in the field of Esports, which is rapidly spreading and transforming into a strong economy in the world.
Esports is in a rapid growth trend in recent years and strong investments are expected to grow by 34 percent in 2019. According to the data shared by McKinsey, there are 21 million Esports followers in America. 83 percent of this population consists of men and 84 percent of people under the age of 35. 10 percent of followers watch the game for more than 20 hours a week. It is effective for Esports to offer higher interaction opportunities than traditional sports in viewers, players and sponsored brands.
With live chat, competitions and special content for followers, Esports has the opportunity to share an intimacy and experience that is not in traditional sports with viewers, teams and players. Esports followers are interested in various games, leagues and teams. The fact that brands act with the right strategy enables them to get their money back. Based on research data, McKinsey points out the following issues:
- Only half of the players watch games: There are 211 million people playing video games in America, and 83 percent of men aged 13-49 are in this group. 63 percent of this audience plays games at least once a week, while only 37 percent watch games at least once a week.
- Championships are very diverse: Esports leagues and tournaments are currently organized for 30 different championships. No esports organization covers all championships. Players rarely take part in more than one championship. In other words, a brand that sponsors an athlete can achieve limited visibility.
- There are more than Esports professionals: Professional tournaments; accounts for only 11 percent of tracking rates. According to 2018 Twitch data, only two of the most watched Esports channels in 2018 belong to professional teams. Others are individual video game publishers. Professional teams who want to increase their viewership also broadcast images of these independent publishers, but they cannot make these collaborations sustainable.
- Audiences are divided: 84 percent of E-sports fans in America watch at least 1 hour a week. However, only 37 percent of them are aware of 3 or more leading E-sports teams. These viewers usually only have one favorite actor or broadcaster and don’t care too much about the teams. There is no global Esports tournament. In contrast, there are those from different countries who are interested in local tournaments.
- Difficulty in reaching precise data: It is very difficult to measure the return of advertising and sponsorship investments in Esports compared to traditional sports. Although YouTube and Twitch have made significant progress in this area, data such as the country, gender, age range, and watch time are still not available. As in general in digital marketing, brands have concerns about ad visibility, fake accounts and bots and targeting.
- Investments increase accessibility, not interaction: By investing in all types of games on platforms like YouTube and Twitch, brands can increase their reach to viewers in this wide variety of areas. But, as with traditional sports sponsorships, more accurately designed strategies are needed to build emotional bonds and engagement with followers.
Expected Trends of the Esports Industry
The Term Esports Will Go Out of Style
E sport in the future will become an official sport branch, just like basketball and football, it will be known as a traditional sport branch. Many countries have already started working officially in this field, and at the same time, people will become more familiar with the term e sport and will see that e sport and traditional sport are not actually different concepts. E sports players will be considered as athletes. When we think about it, e sports players and traditional sports players are both very strategically and physically active and operate in this way.
Mobile Future of Esports
When we say sports, we usually think of games played on a computer screen, but this seems to change in the future. There is a new development day by day from the mobile game industry and the digital game industry, and people who are experts in this field believe that it will be much more profitable and useful to combine these two areas.
Playing games with mobile devices may seem much easier, but this can cause the player to lose control over the game. Playing some games via computer is much more convenient considering the progress of the game and the control of the player.
For example, it is not possible to transfer the League of Legend (LoL) game to the mobile environment. Despite these factors, however, it is said that the popularity of mobile games will gradually increase. Mobile. Especially simple, fun, cookie-like games that we call Hyper-Casual attract people from all walks, one of the best examples is PUB-G Mobile.
There are also derivatives ahead of us such as Google Stadia and so on. Google Stadia is a brand new platform for gamers, developers, and content producers, basically, Stadia is a cloud with many games and thanks to this platform, all you need to play any game from any device that can run Google Chrome is a high-speed internet connection. It is thought that such new trends will bring the transformation of the market.
More Cities Will Leverage Esports As a Tourist Attraction
Host city programs, which cities offer for the right to host great events, have long been the basis of traditional sports. 2019 launched host city programs for several Esports. Newzoo’s preliminary reports review shows that cities are an attractive option for forward-thinking cities that want to increase tourist revenues while being exposed to a younger demographic. This not only brings more tourism, but can also attract young talented talents. According to the report by Riot Games, the League of Legends LEC Finals, which took place over two days, contributed more than $ 2.6 million to the Rotterdam economy.
Esports Moving To The Olympics
Intel, sponsor of the 2018 Winter Olympics, played Starcraft II, a popular real-time strategy game featuring tactical thought, concentration and quick reflexes to professional Esports players brought to PyongChang, where the Olympics were held earlier this week.
Because the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has adopted Esports as a sports branch just like a few countries. This means that Esports has a place in the Olympics that will take place in the near future.
Intel Extreme Masters, an Intel-sponsored Starcraft II tournament held in PyongChang, South Korea prior to the 2018 PyongChang Olympics, proves it perfectly. In less than a year, the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games will take place among common speculations that Esports will find a place on the podium or at least near it. Also, Olympic partner Intel recently announced an Olympic-approved Esports tournament days before the Games opened. In fact, according to Forbes, we may even be seeing E-sports as an Olympic sport as soon as Paris 2024.
5 Steps To Success To The Esports World
McKinsey consultants announced the recipe for sustaining development and growth in the diverse and diverse Esports industry, and they obtained this data as a result of this research.
1. Continuous vitality should be ensured
As I mentioned before interaction is one of the most important things in e sport field. Publishers, leagues, and popular game publishers each broadcast limited to one or two games, and therefore reach a limited audience. Leading Esports events can be an effective solution to this access problem. However, they need to create brand-specific content, manage data well, and measure continuously on the basis of teams and players. This is possible with a strong marketing, IT and analytics team, many of which do not currently exist.
2. Collaborations with publishers should be improved
Independent game publishers have access to large audiences, but they do not have the competence to sell or serve services to sponsor brands alone. To do this, they either have to agree with an agency or participate in Esports events. There is a natural synergy between publishers and leading organizations. They can gain more access than others with cross-marketing, collaborative publications and stronger management.
However, teams that want to achieve this need to strengthen their sales and marketing competencies and prove themselves to publishers in order to compete with agencies. This is a mutual win-win relationship, as well as sponsorships, Esports players need agencies and sponsorships to improve themselves and have more opportunities in athletes.
3. Virtual games should be moved to one-to-one communication spaces
Live Esports events are very popular. Sponsors also finds these live events events which creates a chance of one-on-one interaction with the audience, more valuable than the audience in front of the screens. This allows sponsors’ brands to be more visible, as I said, interaction is one of the most important factors in this area’s rapid growth.
4. Audience measurements should be improved
Leading platforms in the field of Esports should provide data to brands such as frequency of advertisement appearance, individual access and sponsorships offered by teams and leagues. It is very difficult for sponsors to move to a specific area without data and data analysis. With the development of the measurements, sponsors have a clear idea of which area they will focus on and what strategy to determine.
5. Infrastructure must be created for targeting
Esports has now grown to a measurable size, and the industry has to offer sponsors the opportunity to target sub-segments of their e-sports followers and it also makes easier to determine a strategy correctly for sponsors.
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