Visualized: The Esports Journey to Mainstream

Although esports might seem like a relatively new phenomenon, its origins can be traced all the way back to the 1970s.

It was only in the past decade however, that a wave of technological innovation transformed the entire industry from an underground niche into a billion-dollar mainstream phenomenon.

Today, the nascent esports industry competes with some of the biggest sports leagues in the U.S., while global tech giants hastily invest billions of dollars to make their mark in what many consider to be the future of sports and entertainment.

How did it evolve into the industry we know today—and more importantly, will it maintain its furious pace of growth?

The History of Esports

Electronic sports (or esports), are organized, multiplayer video game competitions commonly played by professional gamers. Since its inception, the industry has continued to exceed expectations and reach new milestones every decade.

Note: The timeline of events are an abridged version of major achievements in the industry.

1970s: The Birth of Esports

The earliest known video game competition—the Intergalactic Spacewar Olympics—took place in 1972 at Stanford University. The winner of the event received an annual subscription to Rolling Stone magazine.

While it was a modest first prize for the industry, it would set a foundation for future prize pools in the millions of dollars.

1980s: More Gaming Options

The 1980s ushered in better consoles for esports. The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) took graphics, controls, gameplay, and video game accessibility to the next level.

Five years later, the Sega Genesis console was released in the U.S. and Japan to compete with Nintendo—which held a 95% market monopoly at the time.

1990s: The First Tournaments

Nintendo increased its commitment to esports by hosting the Nintendo World Championships. After touring 30 cities in the U.S., the finals challenged players to games like Super Mario Bros. and Tetris, with a 40-inch TV awarded to the winner.

Developers and gaming entrepreneurs created a flurry of leagues, including QuakeCon in 1996, followed by both the Cyberathlete Professional League (CPL) and the Professional Gamers League (PGL) in 1997.

In just a few years, these competitions helped esports gain significant traction.

2000s: The Explosion of Esports

Esports fully burst into the mainstream with Amazon’s acquisition of Twitch for $970 million in 2014. The live video game streaming site gave esports a platform to reach previously unthinkable heights, with popular games like League of Legends (LoL) and Defense of the Ancients 2 (Dota) receiving millions of views.

In 2019, Google followed suit with its Stadia streaming service. The cloud-based video game platform aims to eliminate the need for hardware, allowing Google to aggressively compete in the esports space.

A Snapshot of Esports Today

The increasing involvement of developers and global tech giants has not only increased the audience size of esports—it has also led to bigger prize pools, and larger scale competitions across the world.

Demographics: 50% of esports viewership now comes from Asia.

50% of esports viewership now comes from Asia. Engagement: 6 billion hours were dedicated to watching esports in 2018, and will continue to grow to 9 billion by 2021.

6 billion hours were dedicated to watching esports in 2018, and will continue to grow to 9 billion by 2021. Buy-in: The price of one of the 12 Overwatch League teams for sale in 2017 was $20 million.

The price of one of the 12 Overwatch League teams for sale in 2017 was $20 million. Incentives: The Fortnite competition prize pool for the 2018 season was $100 million—equal to the entire esports prize pool in 2017.

It’s clear that esports continues to attract rapidly growing audiences at an unprecedented rate. However, there are still significant barriers inhibiting the industry from reaching its full potential.

The Future of esports

In order to maintain its furious pace of growth, the esports industry must first address five key challenges:

Diversity of game genres: The industry will need to produce more game genres in order to appeal to a wider audience outside of its current player base.

The industry will need to produce more game genres in order to appeal to a wider audience outside of its current player base. Geographic expansion of leagues: esports will need to expand to national, regional, and global levels if it wants to tap into bigger advertising budgets. However, while esports gains attention from global media, local events are more difficult to organize.

esports will need to expand to national, regional, and global levels if it wants to tap into bigger advertising budgets. However, while esports gains attention from global media, local events are more difficult to organize. Regulation of competitions: With multimillion-dollar prize pools at stake, new rules and regulations are needed to combat cheating and match fixing.

With multimillion-dollar prize pools at stake, new rules and regulations are needed to combat cheating and match fixing. Ownership of media rights: Content rights have not been a focus for publishers, as fan-generated content has served as free advertising for their games.

Content rights have not been a focus for publishers, as fan-generated content has served as free advertising for their games. Media alignment: Traditional media brands are still reluctant to associate themselves with esports, as prejudices against competitive gaming still exist. For example, gaming culture is viewed as a harmful distraction, rather than a legitimate sport.

In less than 50 years, esports has evolved into a dominant form of entertainment today, eclipsing film and music industries by a wide margin. With an increasingly mainstream audience, the industry’s popularity and profitability shows no signs of slowing down—despite the challenges it faces.