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Now is the season. We’ve just had the NRL and AFL grand finals, but the two big codes aren’t the only players giving major spoils to the victors.
In dark arenas with thousands of cheering fans eSports leagues are doling out serious cash to victors.
We may have already seen The International, the most famous of all money spinners in the eSports scene, pass us by in August, giving away over $26 million to the winners Wings. Yes that’s right. $26 million.
Serious coin.
Beamed to over 2 million people, The International’s main event also attracts serious interest. Not quite NRL or AFL grand final, but not that far off either.
And now we come to the time of year when many of the biggest eSports leagues are wrapping up their seasons.
Almost ten times as small but arguably more watched and more important, the next big event is the League of Legends World Championship for season 2016. The prize pool is $2.6 million, with half of that going to the eventual winner. Divided by the five people playing on the team, the sponsors and the team officials, it still makes for a hell of a pay day for the victor.
This from a free-to-play video game that started in 2009. Seven years isn’t a lot to develop a business. But develop it they’ve done, to the point of dominance over the rest of the eSports scene.
The stream last year had an average of 4.4 million concurrents. That pales in comparison to a regular season NFL fixture, but is the equivalent to State of Origin viewership in Australia.
For all those interested, the finals are actually on this weekend. It’ll be impossible to miss if you land on those websites, forums and subreddits that proliferate the eSports scene.
A brief look at the numbers over the last weekend reveal 400,000 average concurrents, and millions of viewers reached.
Valve’s other money spinner, Counter Strike, doesn’t host their million-dollar tournament until January, but qualification is ongoing. And it’s for $1 million. Not insubstantial even though it’s less than it’s MOBA cousin.
Then you have what you might consider the ‘challenger brand’ in eSports, with Blizzard hosting a festival of their suite of games at their annual expo Blizzcon.
There you’ve got the World of Warcraft Arena World Championship with a prize pool of just over $300,000. Heroes of the Storm has their Autumn (in the US) Global Championship worth $1.3 million.
New kid on the block Overwatch has a World Cup with a to be disclosed prize pool, but considering 15 million people have bought the game it’s safe to say they’re going to be injecting a few dollars into that.
Then come the single player games, with the card game Hearthstone’s World Championship to divvy $1.3 million between 16 players. Give me a piece of that. The StarCraft II World Championship Series Global Finals has a total of $650,000, also to be divided among 16 people.
Challenger brands with some massive figures.
Worthy mentions, particularly in the Oceania region, go to World of Tanks, who’ll be hosting a $130,000 tournament on our shores later this month and Smite, whose develope Hi Rez has targeted Oceania in an effort to build the player base.
That sees around $5 million to be spent over the next month in eSports earnings, on top of all the minor tournaments floating around. Serious money in what is fast becoming serious business.
What does all of this have in common? Basically, it’s sport led.
The developers of these games are shelling out to make sure their players are well-remunerated, and that the public have a product to watch. And while it might not be the over $30 million dished out to players for winning the Super Bowl, it’s actually not that far off.