How Popular Is Esports In 2022
Esports stands for Electronic Sports and 60 countries represent Esports, with six continents represented. Asia represents 24 and Europe represents 22 countries. Esports take place as organized multiplayer game tournaments. Global Esports fandom is continuously growing in 2022 and it will keep on growing in the future as well. According to estimates, there will be 29.6 million monthly esports viewers in 2022. Esports has hit this stratosphere to this extent due to the social part of live streaming and gaming. The global esports audience will surpass 640 million by the year 2025 if the audience will grow by +8.7% year on year.
Esports has Olympic games recognition a summit was held on October 17 by acknowledging the popularity of esports which was concluded as competitive esports could be considered a sporting activity and the player’s involved prepare and train with an intensity that may be comparable to athletes in traditional sports but would require any games used for the Olympics fitting with the rules and regulations of the Olympic movement.
Main Reasons for Esports growth
One of the main reasons would be awareness in people about Esports especially, Generation Z and Generation Alpha. These generations have a full grasp of technology and gaming. Both of these generations have been networking over the past few years, and they play an important part in the growth of Esports.
As we can see the recent partnership between the National Football League and FaZe Clan and the most recent merchandise collaboration between FaZe Clan and the LA Kings National Hockey Club. In case you don’t know FaZe clan is the most popular Esports and entertainment organization in the world.
Counter strike plays an important role in the growth of Esports as it is the most popular Esports game in the world but in 2022 it has to be the popular new franchises such as Valorant and League of Legends. These types of games are the type of games people love to play in a competitive environment. Whether they win or not they seem to enjoy it.
The expansion of mobile Esports also played an important role in the growth of Esports and is still playing. Many people in this era use mobile phones so bringing Esports to mobile is such a smart move you don’t have to buy a complete setup for competitive gaming you can just buy a mobile phone that can run Esport games smoothly and you can play competitive but of course, it is not that easy. For now, there are regional leagues for mobile Esports like Mobile legends: bang bang and PUBG mobile tournaments.
The rise of Esports in growth markets across Southeast Asia Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa also played an important role in the growth of Esports.
Millennials for sure owed a great deal of credit for the growth of Esports. This generation is obsessed with gaming. By 2022 over 45% of millennials already traveled to Esports and such types of events in person.
Esports Audience Growth from 2020-2022
According to the official Esports and Live streaming market report that was released in April 2022, the overall audience was 435.7 million in 2020, and 489.5 million in 2021 with a 12.4% increase from 2020, and 532 million audiences will be by the end of 2022 with 8.7% increase from 2021, and eventually, the audience will be more than 640 million by the end of 2025.
Rising Revenues
Due to the immense growth of Esports globally it will generate almost $1.38 billion in revenues by the end of 2022. China accounts for one-third of the worldwide esports revenues. Mostly, revenues are generated from brand partnerships, and it is fair to say that it is the foundation on which esports was built. In 2022 nearly $837.3 million was generated by sponsorships which is almost 60% of the entire market.
Many Esports organizations are branching out their revenue systems from sponsorships which is ideally the best choice because relying on one revenue stream is very risky. So, keeping that in mind esports organizations will shift to Direct-to-fan monetization, digital merch and NFTs, loyalty schemes, traditional investment, and educational programs to ensure that their revenues will continue to increase.
The Esports organizations and brands who understand the differences between each region’s esports fans and that preferences can differ from one nation’s fans to another are more likely to enjoy better runs on their investments.
As the research says Regional Asia-Pacific esports revenue will grow by +17% year by year to reach $590.2 million by the end of 2022 and these revenues will account for almost 42% of global revenues.
By this, we can know how famous esports is current and how quickly it is growing as a sport in 2022 and will continue to grow in the future.