Any type of disruption makes us move forward and teaches us to evolve tomorrow. This applies to esports as well. Esports is one of the few industries that excelled in the times of the Coronavirus crisis when many Esports organizations witnessed a surge in popularity.
Esports is all set to rival the most famous traditional sports leagues, because of the pandemic. In terms of opportunities, there are many growth areas in this industry which include advertising, ticket sales, licensing, sponsorship, and merchandising.
What are Esports?
Esports or electronic sports is a virtual platform where skilled video gamers play competitively in the same manner that traditional gamers play various sports like football, basketball, etc. It transforms online gaming into a spectator sport and provides a similar experience as watching a sporting event. The only difference is that instead of watching a physical event, you watch video gamers in a virtual environment competing against each other.
Esports is a budding industry that includes most of the traditional genre of sports including NBA2K, and FIF, but it also includes larger-than-life games such as League of Legends, Counter-Strike, Dota, and much more.
Here individual players make money by streaming themselves playing, or they opt to join larger organizations and compete to earn bigger cash prizes. The players interact with their fans in person at a tournament, through social media, or live streaming platforms.
Fans of esports can watch and follow their favorite teams when they compete in local or global tournaments.
Terminology of Esports
Some of the most common terms used in esports are:
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Players
Naturally, the most important part of esports is the player. Becoming a top player requires rising through the ranks, along with specialization in a specific game. Players have to develop their skills, and some even train them for almost 14 hours a day. Players have two options to take part in esports events, they can choose to live-stream themselves, or can opt to rise to a professional level and compete in tournaments all over the world.
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Teams
Professional players can join teams while playing in multi-player games or can play solo games to compete to win prizes. Most of the time, each team specializes in one specific game only. The teams have millions of followers who watch them online, while many spectators even follow them when they play in-person tournaments.
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Organizations
The best teams become part of the Esports organizations. An organization can have several teams that specialize in different video games and they compete under the same name. An Esport organization has a large fan base and they recruit most high profile players and teams. They provide additional revenue along with cash prizes offered in the tournaments. The extra revenues are often determined by the success of a player and are offered accordingly.
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Leagues
Video gamers take part in leagues to participate in regular game seasons, playoffs, and also take part in various world championships. Similar to basketball teams, esports teams under an organization compete in various video games leagues to win enormous cash prizes offered. Interestingly, today many of the esports leagues are nearly as large as traditional sporting events.
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Publishers
Every game of esports is the intellectual property of the creator, known as the publishers. Unlike traditional games that can be played by anyone, publishers control their games and own all rights where the game is to be played, who can host the video game tournaments, and more.
Conclusion
The esports industry can be rightly termed as the most technology-driven sport the world has witnessed in recent years. There is a possibility that this genre of sports will overshadow traditional sports soon. If you also want to be a part of this challenging field, click on the link.
