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3 Companies Leadingthe E-Sports Revolution

Image source: Cisco.

Activision Blizzard’s portfolio of gaming properties puts the company in position to be one of the biggest beneficiaries of momentum in e-sports.

Image source: Activision Blizzard.

Activision Blizzard

Activision also purchased Major League Gaming in 2015 for $47 million, supplementing the company’s strong position in e-sports titles with one of the leading broadcast brands.

Image source: Activision Blizzard.

Turning its franchises into fixtures of the e-sports scene presents the opportunity for marketing tie-ins and could work to extend product life cycles.

Image source: Activision Blizzard.

Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick believes that the company’s core franchises have the potential to build viewer bases that surpass those of the MLB, NHL, and MLS professional sports leagues.

Image source: Activision Blizzard.

Image source: Amazon.

Amazon

Amazon bought Twitch for $970 million in 2014, giving the online retail giant a forefront position in game streaming and e-sports content. Twitch generated an estimated $2 billion in revenue in 2016.

Image source: Amazon.

Twitch estimates that its content reaches roughly 50% of millennial-aged males. Roughly 21% of the platform’s viewership comes from e-sports tournaments, an impressive figure considering that the service logs roughly 1.7 million unique monthly broadcasters.

Amazon will soon introduce a portal to buy games through Twitch, turning streams and e-sports events into retail sales opportunities.

The company is also using integration between Twitch and Amazon Web Services to get developers on board with the company’s cloud platform.

Image source: Amazon.

Amazon’s game development studios are creating original games with deep Twitch integration, and the company has even started a competitive gaming league, the Esports Championship Series.

Image source: Amazon.

Disney’s network segment, and its ESPN channel in particular, are being impacted by declining cable subscribers, and the company is looking to streaming content as a new growth avenue. Coverage of e-sports looks to feature prominently in the push.

Image source: Disney.

Disney

Disney launched a vertical for e-sports coverage in January 2016, and the company is running e-sports highlights on SportsCenter and presenting live coverage on ESPN2 and ESPN3.

Image source: Disney.

Disney’s Bamtech streaming service signed a deal with Riot Games for e-sports broadcast rights to League of Legends for at least $300 million through 2023. League of Legends is the most watched e-sports game, so the deal could be a major content win for Disney.

Image source: Disney.

While the cost of coverage rights for sports leagues including the NFL and NBA has increased dramatically in recent years, viewership growth has not kept pace. On the other hand, e-sports content is comparatively inexpensive, and interest is growing rapidly.

Image source: Disney.

A report from financial firm R.W. Baird anticipates that annual revenue from non-gambling e-sports will reach $1.8 billion by 2020 – up from $200 million in 2014.

The e-sports market is still very young, so it’s difficult to target where it will be 10 years down the line, but competitive gaming looks to present meaningful sales and brand-building opportunities for some of the world’s biggest tech and media companies.

How big is the eSports opportunity?

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