E-sports market.
E-sports, the competitive playing of videogames, is drawing huge audiences online and at tournaments and is set to become a 1-billion-dollar market in 2019, watched by more than 100 million people. Videogames are traditionally regarded as something with which consumers interact directly, but the growth of e-sports viewing highlights how consumption patterns are changing. US TV station ABC broadcast a key Overwatch League e-sports match live on a Saturday afternoon last month for the first time.
E-sports will grow rapidly beyond traditional markets such as South Korea; China will pass Western Europe to be the second-largest market.
The audience for e-sports will increasingly overtake rival sports, particularly those with an ageing audience including baseball.
New forms of advertising are being developed to match changing consumption patterns, creating a virtuous circle of e-sports growth.
Top-performing participants will get increasing prize money and as in traditional sports, cheating will grow in sophistication.
Mechanisms for monitoring and punishing cheating will improve; China has banned millions of ‘PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds’ game accounts.
