9781422277348

Tech 2.0

n

World-Changing Entertainment Companies W C s

Esports A Billion Eyeballs and Growing

by Craig Ellenport

Tech 2.0 World-Changing Entertainment Companies

Esports: A Billion Eyeballs and Growing GoPro ® , Garmin ® , and Camera Drones Netflix ® , Amazon ® , Hulu ® , and Streaming Video Pixar ® , Disney ® , DreamWorks ® , and Digital Animation Spotify ® , Pandora ® , and Streaming Music YouTube ® and Videos of Everything!

Tech 2.0 World-Changing Entertainment Companies

Esports: A Billion Eyeballs and Growing

by Craig Ellenport

Mason Crest

Mason Crest 450 Parkway Drive, Suite D Broomall, PA 19008 www.masoncrest.com © 2019 by Mason Crest, an imprint of National Highlights, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the publisher. Printed and bound in the United States of America. Series ISBN: 978-1-4222-4053-3 Hardback ISBN: 978-1-4222-4054-0 EBook ISBN: 978-1-4222-7734-8 First printing 1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2 Produced by Shoreline Publishing Group LLC Santa Barbara, California Editorial Director: James Buckley Jr. Designer: Patty Kelley www.shorelinepublishing.com Cover photograph by Leonel Calara/Shutterstock. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Ellenport, Craig, author. Title: Esports : a billion eyeballs and growing / by Craig Ellenport. Description: Broomall, PA : Mason Crest, 2018. | Series: Tech 2.0 : world changing-entertainment companies | Includes index. Identifiers: LCCN 2018006176| ISBN 9781422240540 (hardback) | ISBN 9781422240533 (series) | ISBN 9781422277348 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Video games--Competitions--Juvenile literature. Classification: LCC GV1469.3 .E563 2018 | DDC 794.8079-- dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018006176 QR Codes disclaimer: You may gain access to certain third party content (“Third-Party Sites”) by scanning and using the QR Codes that appear in this publication (the “QR Codes”). We do not oper- ate or control in any respect any information, products, or services on such Third-Party Sites linked to by us via the QR Codes included in this publication, and we assume no responsibility for any materials you may access using the QR Codes. Your use of the QR Codes may be subject to terms, limitations, or restrictions set forth in the applicable terms of use or otherwise established by the owners of the Third-Party Sites. Our linking to such Third-Party Sites via the QR Codes does not imply an endorsement or sponsorship of such Third-Party Sites, or the information, products, or services offered on or through the Third-Party Sites, nor does it imply an endorsement or sponsorship of this publication by the owners of such Third-Party Sites.

CONTENTS

Introduction: The World Is Watching . . . . . . . . . 6 Chapter 1: The Rise of Esports . 12 Chapter 2: Esports’ Complex World . 24 Chapter 3: Reaching New Heights . 36 Chapter 4: So You Want to Be an Esports Star . 50 Find Out More. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62 Series Glossary of Key Terms. . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 Index. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64 Educational Videos: Readers can view videos by scanning our QR codes, providing them with additional educational content to supplement the text. Examples include news coverage, moments in history, speeches, iconic moments, and much more! Text-Dependent Questions: These questions send the reader back to the text for more careful attention to the evidence presented here. Sidebars: This boxed material within the main text allows readers to build knowledge, gain insights, explore possibilities, and broaden their perspectives by weaving together additional information to provide realistic and holistic perspectives. Words to Understand: These words with their easy-to-understand definitions will increase the reader’s understanding of the text, while building vocabulary skills. KEY ICONS TO LOOK FOR Research Projects: Readers are pointed toward areas of further inquiry connected to each chapter. Suggestions are provided for projects that encourage deeper research and analysis.

Series Glossary of Key Terms: This back-of-the-book glossary contains terminology used throughout this series. Words found here increase the reader’s ability to read and comprehend higher-level books and articles in this field.

Tech 2.0 Introduction: The World is Watching

7 N ear the end of 2017, some of the top executives in college athletics gathered for a conference in New York City. One of the most talked about subjects during the two-day event was the idea of varsity esports—competitive video gaming. Some schools em- braced the idea of establishing esports teams at the college level. Oth- ers—despite the meteoric rise in popularity of esports—still wanted no part of it. A speaker on one of the panels, Rutgers University athletic director Patrick Hobbs, said he is often approached by people who tell him he shouldn’t get involved in esports. He offered his response to those people: “I pull up Twitch,” said Hobbs, referring to the live streaming platform that has been a hub of sorts for esports. “So if I pulled out my phone right now and we opened up Twitch, went on League of Legends, there might be someone practicing—with 57,000 people watching him practice. And their reaction is, ‘Oh my God.’ You get their attention pretty quickly.” The idea is quite simple, really. When games like baseball and basketball were invented, it’s safe to say that nobody predicted spectators filling stadiums and arenas to watch the games get played. But as more and more people played these games, there was an understanding and appreciation for watching the games played at their highest levels. Video games have only been around a few decades, but they are played by mil- lions of people in the United States and around the world. The comparison with tra- ditional sports is fair: it’s only logical that video game enthusiasts would appreciate watching the best gamers in the business. Of course, just as the popularity of mainstream sports turned them into giant businesses, the business of esports has already exploded into an industry that every-

Tech 2.0

one wants to get in on. It’s been estimated that global revenue from esports in 2017 amounted to $1.5 billion dollars—and that number is projected to grow to nearly $2 billion by 2020. Venture capital firms, major media conglomerates, and even established traditional sports leagues and teams have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in esports, looking to get involved in a business they expect to get bigger and bigger. With hundreds of events taking place around the globe, broad- casting and streaming have already become huge. Then there’s adver- tising and ticket sales, and even merchandising (T-shirts, hats, post- ers, etc.) as fans have chosen favorite teams. That’s not even including the sale of video games to the public. If the rise of esports leads to

Fans flock to watch esports events in arenas around the world.

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greater sales of video games, that falls under the umbrella of related business (like a sporting goods store selling baseball equipment to Little Leaguers). Origin of Esports N o matter what you call it, esports is huge. It’s been estimated that more than 70 million people around the world attend es- ports tournaments, with hundreds of millions more watching on TV or some other device. Despite the unbelievable popularity of esports, there’s one quite controversial issue regarding its name. It is something that gamers will likely never stop hearing: It’s not a sport! Unlike actual esports competition—in which one keeps score and it is therefore easy to determine a winner—neither side will admit defeat in the debate over whether or not esports is really a sport. For the sake of argument, here are some key factors in favor of calling it a sport: • esports games require lightning-fast reflexes, thus a certain de- gree of physical ability • esports games require excellent hand-eye coordination • esports games require strategic thought and preparation • esports is a competition, with a clear set of rules and a scoring system to determine winners and losers. According to Ryan Garfat, a senior editor at ESPN.com who launched that site’s esports section, the question of whether or not esports is a sport is irrelevant.

Introduction: The World Is Watching

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Tech 2.0

“They don’t want to be athletes,” Garfat said of video gamers. “No- body wants to compare themselves to decathletes. But they are profes- sionals, at the highest level of competition. ESPN puts on a spelling bee. It puts on poker. There’s a variety of programming that we cover, and what we cover is the highest level of competition anywhere.” The 2017 League of Legends World Championship was held in November at the Bird’s Nest in Beijing, China—where they had the 2008 opening ceremonies for the Olympics—and they had 50,000 people in attendance. It was projected that more than 40 million people were watching a live stream of the event. Is that enough to convince people it’s a sport? If anyone in the United Stateswants to make a case against esports as a sport, they can take it up with the federal gov- ernment. That’s because in 2013, the US government announced it would recog- nize professional video game players as athletes in order for competitors to acquire visas to come to the United States to compete. That said, whether or not it’s really a sport is a moot point. Call it what you want, esports is a global phenomenon that is only getting bigger.

The Bird’s Nest hosted the LoL World Championships.

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The Actual Name Before getting into the history of esports, it’s worth spending a little time try- ing to figure out the origins (and the spelling) of the name itself. It’s not like other sports that have one clear-cut version of what they’re called—baseball, football, and basketball, for example. Do a quick web search, and you’ll find references to eSports, esports, e-Sports and e-sports. So which is correct? In 2000, the Korea e-Sports Association was created, and that is be- lieved to be the first official use of the term. In 2003, the Electronic Sports World Cup was launched in France. This international tournament was orig- inally an annual event; now it holds multiple events each year. In 2016, the company that owns the Electronic Sports World Cup renamed it the eSports World Convention. Wikipedia lists the subject as “eSports,” while ESPN. com has a section covering “esports.” ESPN.com’s esports section launched in January 2016, and what to call it was actually one of the first questions the editors addressed. “When we launched our site we came up with an esports style guide for our copy editors to use as reference—different names of games, posi- tions, that type of thing,” recalled ESPN.com esports senior editor Ryan Gar- fat. “And our first discussion was how to address the word esports.” Garfat said he felt good about the company’s decision to go with “es- ports”—explaining that they felt it was akin to “email.” Their opinion was even- tually validated by one of the staples of modern journalism: in April 2017, the Associated Press Style Guide formally added “esports” to its glossary of terms. “I do believe ESPN had an influence on AP’s ultimate decision,” said Garfat.

Introduction: The World Is Watching

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1 The Rise

of Esports

Ever since I was a young boy I’ve played the silver ball From Soho down to Brighton I must have played them all But I ain’t seen nothing like him In any amusement hall That deaf dumb and blind kid Sure plays a mean pinball!

— from “Pinball Wizard,” 1969

W hen the Who recorded “Pinball Wizard,” a song about Tommy, the deaf, dumb and blind boy who couldn’t be beat at the arcade, there was no such thing as a “video game.” In the early 1970s, there were a few pinball machine tournaments, but these WORDS TO UNDERSTAND monopoly  a situation in which one company controls the production or sale of a single product or service pilot  in TV terms, a sample show produced to see if it would be popular enough to create a whole season’s worth surreal  bizarre, very unusual syndication  the secondary sales of a TV show after it has been broadcast by its original network

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Tech 2.0

competitions never gained much steam. Pinball machines were pop- ular at arcades, and some adults continued to play pinball at their lo- cal bar, but the problem was that very few people had the space—or the money—to have a pinball machine in their house. By the early 1980s, however, when companies like Atari and Intellivision first started making video game consoles for home use, everything changed. Kids and adults alike were consumed with sim- ple games such as Space Invaders, Asteroids and Donkey Kong. These games weren’t simple at the time—it all seemed very futuristic, since few people back then could have imagined a future that would bring 3D graphics and multiplayer functionality—not to mention digital communications that could allow you to play video games in real

Teenagers poured quarters into arcade games in the 1980s.

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