Number of eSports enthusiasts to reach 285 mln by 2024
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The prize of the first known video game tournament back in 1972 at Stanford University was a 1-year subscription to pop-culture magazine, Rolling Stone. The world of eSports has since reached unprecedented heights and has made the industry one of the fastest-growing in the world, according to a report by the Warsaw Business Journal.
In 2020, it is estimated that eSports had an audience size of 436 million with prizes now in the millions of dollars. Almost half of eSport's current audience consider themselves eSports enthusiasts, with that figure set to grow even more in the coming years. According to data presented by Safe Betting Sites, the number of eSports enthusiasts is projected to increase by over 32% by 2024 to more than 285 million.
The eSports industry, and in a broader sense, the gaming industry, was already in the ascendancy before the pandemic riddled year of 2020. In 2019, there were an estimated 397.8 million viewers of eSports, a figure that increased by almost 10% in 2020 to 436 million.
The coronavirus pandemic still caused the eSports industry's revenue to decrease in 2020, albeit just marginally by 1% to USD 947 million from USD 957 million in 2019. This is a relative success considering most major industries experienced massive drops in revenue in 2020. It is also worth noting that gaming and eSports improved on many other vital industry metrics such as viewership and usage. By 2021, the revenue from the eSports market is projected to recover and cross the USD 1 billion mark for an increase of 14.5% y.o.y. The revenue from the eSports market is expected to experience an 11.1% CAGR from 2019-2024 to a figure of USD 1.62 billion by the end of the forecast period.
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