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Companies are expected to spend $325 million (£230m) on eSports this year – making up around 70 per cent of all revenues in the growing space.
According to Newzoo’s Global Esports Market Report, $128 million (£90m) will be spent on eSports sponsoring and another $197 million (£140m) on advertising around eSports video content in 2016.
The spend is an increase of 49 per cent and growth is set to continue as more brands make their move into the sector.
Newzoo expects brands to pump more than $800 million into esports by 2019, the same year the total market passes the $1 billion mark.
These brand revenues don’t include media rights, which – you guessed it – are also set to rise.
The news comes as Intel Extreme Masters in Poland pulled in record viewer figures. The finals were seen by more than 34 million unique viewers – a 32 per cent increase on last year.
The three-day main event itself saw 113,000 fans stream into the Spodek arena and IEM Expo, with the finals of each tournament taking place live in front of 10,000 fans. You can check out more of PCR’s Intel Extreme Masters content in this link:
‘The eSports bubble isn’t going to burst’ – Intel
Heinrich Zetlmayer, MD of Turtle Entertainment/ESL, said: “2016 will see an accelerated growth of non-endemic consumer brands’ engagement in esports.”
Peter Warman, Newzoo CEO, added: “The explosive growth of esports and the ongoing convergence of games and video provides the biggest opportunity for the games industry since the launch of the iPhone back in 2007."
More than half of eSports enthusiasts globally are aged between 21 and 35.
There are more graphs and stats in this NewZoo post.
