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The Emerging eSports Markets of Europe

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Source: Statista

Even though video games have become one of the most lucrative industries worldwide, eSports are still considered far removed from “real” sports, even though events like world championships in popular games like League of Legends, DotA 2 or StarCraft II regularly sell out huge arenas and athletes follow similarly strict training regimes to improve at their craft. While the general populace may be skeptical, gamers in key European markets are starting to take more and more notice of the appeal of virtual competitions as our chart shows.

Overall, eSports viewership in Europe has risen by by 6 million in 2020 compared to 2019, a change of 7.4 percent. As data from a joint survey by PayPal and Newzoo in key European markets indicates, these numbers will likely climb even further in the future. 59 percent of total respondents said they were watching more eSports than in 2019 and will likely continue to do so in the coming years. The market breakdown however shows huge differences between countries. In the Nordics, less than half of the participants viewed more eSports content than before, with Norway coming in last at 25 percent. 70 percent of Spanish viewers, on the other hand, said their watch time of their favorite teams duking it out on the virtual stage increased when compared to 2019.

In 2021, the global eSports market was valued at approximately 1.1 billion US dollars worldwide. Even though the numbers have steadily increased over the last years, it still only makes up a fraction of the overall global video game market, which was tentatively valued at about 180 billion US dollars this year.

The Emerging eSports Markets of Europe

Do You Know E-Sports?

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Source: Statista

With the impact of lockdown on consumer habits and the release of the new PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series consoles, 2020 is definitely a landmark year for the video game industry. In a recently published report, YouGov looks back on the adaptation of this market to the pandemic and the major trends in video games. Among the latter, e-sports is a growing field. E-sports is the term for video games being played competitively or even professionally – as the emergence of an international scene of tournaments handing out substantial prize money in recent years shows.

Not everybody knows this though, as the survey by YouGov shows. Participants were given one right and three incorrect answers to choose the correct definition of e-sports from. Most people succeeded in picking the right answer in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, but Scandinavian countries also ranked high in familiarity with the concept. A substantial difference was the engagement in e-sports, however. While many Scandinavians knew e-sports, fewer were taking part either as players or spectators. In contrast Chinese and other Asians were much more involved.

The makers of the survey concluded that markets like India had the highest growth potential for e-sports. While only a minority of Indians could place the concept right, those who could engaged in high numbers, leading the researchers to hypothesize that those yet to gain familiarity would follow suit in engagement. The same patterns emerged in markets like Indonesia, Saudi Arabia and the Philippines.

esports Infographic