Netflix has recently released a movie highlighting e-sport games entitled “The kissing booth” – the American teen romantic comedy film starring Joe king and Jacob Elordi. Based on the 2012 novel of Welsh author Beth Reekles, the movie scenes show the boom and the influence of e-sports in young people’s lives, especially those of Americans.

E-sports have astonishingly risen in popularity over years only. Commonly referred to as electronic sports, e-sports are video gaming events engaging amateurs or professional players to compete each other in electronic games for a prize pool. These have seemingly grown as an essential part of popular culture. Global investors, brands, media outlets and consumers are all now seen to pay more attention to this unexpected rise of the games industry.

The industry of e-sports has seen important growth over the years, both in terms of viewership and revenue. Some data provided by Statista shows that in 2021, the global e-sports market was valued at just over 1.08 billion U.S. dollars, an almost 50 percent increase from the previous year. Additionally, the e-sports industry’s global market revenue was forecast to grow to as much as 1.62 billion dollars in 2024. Asia and North America represent the largest e-sports markets in terms of revenue.

According to statistics from eMarketer, American e-sports audiences are estimated to reach 26.6 million this year, up 11.4 percent from 2020 with 23.9 million and 21.1 million as of 2019. The number of viewers is expected to increase up to 29.6 million in 2022 and 31.4 million in 2023.

In terms of e-sports market revenue, it largely comes from sponsorships and advertising. Statistics show that the global e-sports market revenue from this sponsorship and advertising totaled 641 million dollars in 2021. The next highest source of revenue, by contrast, was media rights at just over 192 million dollars (Statista).

E-sports are video gaming events.

Organized competitions have long been a part of video game culture, but played only between amateurs. By the late 2000s, the field of e-sports has taken new shape when live streaming events involving the participation of professional gamers and spectatorship of those events surged in popularity. Since then, e-sports have become an important leverage in the video game industry, pushing many game developers to actively design and fund gaming tournaments and events.

During the competitions, professional players choose their games and try to win a match or a tournament. Some of the common types of e-sports games include Player versus player (PvP), Real time strategy (RTS), First person shooter (FPS) and Multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA).

It is not sure if e-sports can compete with other popular sports in America, like basketball and football. Yet, over time, these competitive electronic games have grown so fast in the U.S. that these now rank among popular sports entertainments.

Sources: Insider intelligence/ Statista/ Greek Insider / Forbes.