Esports are up high, down under in Australia!

When it comes to esports, Australia probably isn’t the first country you think of. Between big places like Korea, China and Japan, or even the US, it’s easy to forget that quite a lot of different esports leagues even created a separate region for Australia! In fact, Australia is the 14th biggest esports market in the world!

12.4 million players spent north of $1.3 billion – a significant amount. Mobile games are particularly popular in the country with more than 40% of both men and women playing. Console and PC games are less popular – as a matter of fact, as far as women go, only 15% and 20% of women play Console and PC games respectively. 28% and 33% of men play Console and PC games.

A quarter of players bought expansions, DLC packs and power-ups in games. That’s a pretty big part, and it’s part of why esports revenue exceeds a billion dollars. The same percentage – a quarter of the population, also watch gaming video content.

There are also plenty of events that take place in Australia – in no small part because games like Overwatch and the like have specific leagues for the Australian region. An example of this would be the Australian Open 2019 tennis tournament… which featured a Fortnite competition! As for dedicated esports events and locations, Australia just opened their first dedicated arena: Sydney Moore Park.

Gfinity Esports Australia and the Hoyts cinema chain are going to add more of these arenas around the country, in existing cinema locations. Sydney Cricket Ground also opened something new last year – the first ever dedicated esports high performance centre, opened in a deal with the University of Technology in Sydney.

“It will be a game changer to have Australia’s leading Esports professionals in a dedicated high-performance centre in the same precinct as the best athletes and officials from the SCG and Allianz Stadium’s traditional sports,” said Jamie Barkley the chief exec of the Sydney Cricket Ground.

Additionally, something else rather exceptional happened – much like Overwatch in the US has a deal with Disney and its associated TV channels, Australia’s Network 10 also now shows esports matches. More specifically, Rocket League. Along with that, the company also offers increased connectivity and broadband speeds in order to allow for the streaming of bigger tournaments on their platforms.

That’s a pretty big deal, and certainly a good reflection of the fact that the number of esports fans in the country nearly doubled in just about two years. With estimates of millions of esports fans in the country, it’s no surprise that the place is catching up to the more established esports markets in the world, even though it is, of course, doubtful that it will ever reach the heights of, say, Korea.

That doesn’t mean that Australia’s market isn’t expanding though – with no signs of slowing growth or dips in popularity, esports have a bright future down under!