Over this past weekend, tens of millions of people all around the world tuned in to watch two teams, one Korean and one Chinese, compete for the title of best in the world at the video game League of Legends. I’m guessing that you didn’t notice.
Most people’s first response to the concept of eSports – the industry term for professional, competitive video gaming – is that it’s ridiculous. Why would anyone want to watch other people play a video game? To the uninitiated, it can seem almost unbelievable. Most people dismiss it as a niche pastime and move on.
Numbers don’t lie
But while eSports may have begun as a niche industry, it would be hard to argue that term really still applies. 2013’s League of Legends World Championship attracted a massive 32 million viewers across online streams and offline viewing events, according to the BBC. That was more than triple the number that tuned in in 2012. Comprehensive viewership statistics for this weekend’s finals aren’t available yet, but they are likely to continue this trend of speedy growth. And League of Legends is just one of a growing number of games with a growing eSports scene. This summer, more than 20 million viewers tuned in to watch The International 4, the Dota 2 world finals.
If those numbers aren’t impressing you, they should be. This year’s NBA finals viewership numbers, for example, didn’t even hit 20 million. And even the most-watched Sunday Night Football game in history can’t compete with the League of Legends finals viewership from last year. Sure, those comparisons are a little unfair, as the NBA and NFL audiences are mostly American while League of Legends, Dota 2, and other games have global audiences. But on the other hand, the NBA and the NFL have been around for decades building their brand and marketing. Neither League of Legends nor Dota 2 even existed five years ago.
A Samsung White player during this weekend’s League of Legends final.
No, it’s not just Korea
This is a global phenomenon. Competitive gaming as a serious profession may have found its first foothold in Korea, where it has been a popular form of entertainment for more than a decade, but these days there are large audiences everywhere. For example: in China more than two million people tuned in to watch a semifinal match of League of Legends via a single streaming site last week. And that doesn’t include people who watched the match via other streaming sites or who watched the match later via video-on-demand services.
Wherever you are, if League of Legends or Dota 2 has a significant player base in your country – and if you’re in Asia, at least one of the two almost certainly does – you can bet that there’s a significant eSports viewerbase, too.
So why should you care? Opportunity knocks
Even if you don’t care about video games at all, if you’re interested in the tech industry in Asia, you should be following eSports. Here’s are two reasons:
1. Marketing
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