eSports Industry on the Rise Again as Enthusiasts Grow

April 16, 2021

In recent years, the eSports industry has been one of the fastest growing industries in the world. We are now talking about hundreds of millions of people around the world tuning into events throughout the year, and when we hit the bigger events, those lucky enough to win are usually taking home millions in prize money.

It is a far cry from where we were a decade ago, never mind where we were when eSports officially began back in the 1970s. Audience numbers as a whole are going up, but so is the way that these are split down. New fans coming into eSports do not mean that the number of casual viewers is growing. Numbers show that the number of eSports enthusiast is growing at the same rate as the number of casual viewers, which is hugely exciting for the future.

Half of eSports Fans are Enthusiasts

What will really delight anyone who is involved in the eSports industry is how the fans are split. There will be many people out there who expect most fans to be casual viewers, but that is not the case, the numbers are split very evenly.

This means that around half of all eSports watchers consider themselves to be enthusiasts of the sport. Figures for 2020 show that there are around 435 million eSports watchers. Of those, 220 million consider themselves to be casual watchers while 412 million consider themselves to be enthusiasts.

Forecast numbers for the end of 2021 and for 2024 in the future all show that the number of enthusiasts is set to continue being around half of all viewers. What the industry will love here is that while they continue to bring in new fans to watch events, they are also doing a great job of converting new fans into becoming enthusiasts, rather than sticking as casual watchers.

The Future of the Industry

The fact that eSports is attracting so many people to be enthusiasts means that the figures for market revenue over the next few years look very good. Things are on the rise, and the year of 2021 is expected to be the first where market revenue goes over $1 billion. This is on the back of a year when revenue dipped a little in 2020, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, so even more impressive.

As already mentioned, the expectation is that the eSports industry will be able to keep the same kinds of number for enthusiasts as we move forward and the predictions go up to 2024. This is reflected in the forecasts for market revenue too, which also look great.

Expected figures of $1.084 billion at the end of 2021 go up to an expected figure of $1.617 billion by the time we get to 2024. More eyes are on eSports than ever before, more fans are engaging and becoming interested and that is all helping the market revenue rise to numbers we have never seen before.

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