E-Sports: The Dawn of a Massive Industry
JUAN PEREZ | JAN. 29, 2018 | COLUMN
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (SCPDA) —In the past five years, there has been an unexpected boom in popularity in competitive video games. For years, many people just saw video games as just that: games, made for children to enjoy. Due to the violence of video games such as “Mortal Kombat”, a lot of people have thought that video games were good for nothing and made children acquire aggressive tendencies. These viewpoints have been slowly shifting for some adults, especially with newfound research regarding cognitive developments acquired from video games. All of these changes have allowed for the rise of e-sports. E-sports is the competitive playing of video games, generally for a cash prize of some sort.
While the concept of competitive gaming is nothing new, e-sports have been gaining a massive following in the past couple of years. For example, in 2014, 27 million people tuned into several streaming services to watch the finals of the World Championship for “League of Legends”, the most popular online video game to date. 23.5 million people were watching game 7 of the World Series of that year, and 18 million people watched the deciding game of that year’s NBA Finals. The finals for the League of Legends World Championship this year were watched by approximately 60 million people, over double that of 2014. Now, a huge question many should be asking is how much potential the e-sports scene has.
At this rate, the e-sports industry has the potential to become as well-known as traditional sports such as basketball or football. While it’s hard to believe, video games and the competitive playing of said video games is becoming more popular than they have ever been. So popular, in fact, that major sports companies are beginning to invest in e-sports. In the middle of September, Riot Games, the company responsible for the creation of “League of Legends”, announced that they were going to begin a franchising system for their own tournament called the North American League Championship Series, also known as NALCS. This system allowed for companies to safely invest money into making a team for the NALCS, without the potential threat of that company to lose their investment due to their team losing a spot in the next NALCS, which would have happened under the previous system. Not too long ago, the Cleveland Cavaliers secured a franchise spot in the NALCS for $13 million. Other NBA teams have also purchased franchise spots from Riot Games, such as the Houston Rockets and the Golden State Warriors. Former NBA player Rick Fox also owns his own team in the NALCS. While this may not seem like a lot, it is surely a sign that people are realizing the potential of e-sports.
The e-sports industry has a great potential for success, and will eventually become more popular internationally than most other sports. There has already been talk of the Olympic Committee considering e-sports for the Games in the future, so there is potential for the community. It may seem weird to imagine people watching “Call of Duty” on their TVs as friends and family gather around, but it seems to be heading in that direction gradually. All I can do is recommend people to keep an eye out for e-sports, because it won’t be too long until it can dominate mainstream media, or at least be a part of it.