The main question is what exactly means to make an audience fork out, which, according to Nielsen Sports, in Russia alone amounts to 12 million people. The choice of a monetization tool will determine how quickly the investment will pay off and what profit it will bring. Under the cut is an overview of the actual methods of monetization of e-sports and promising areas of additional profit from virtual competitions.
ESports streaming and advertising
One of the significant expenses of e-sports is the streaming of e-sports. It is this area that is today the most stable and at the same time the most profitable. The main platforms for streaming eSports are traditionally Twitch and YouTube. So, in Russia, RuHub, a studio that is part of Esforce, the company that actually created the e-sports business ecosystem in Russia, is the recognized leader in e-sports broadcasts.
Esforce eSports projects are regularly visited by over 3 million people. According to the data provided by Esforce specialists, the ROSI (Return on Sponsorship Investment) ratio is about 1: 3, and there are cases where it reaches 1:52. Such results are possible mainly due to streaming and advertising placed during streams.
The possibilities for advertising are exhaustive. So this or that company can both sponsor one broadcast and invest in entire tournaments, instead placing advertisements in broadcasts and at special events. For example, it is known that Mercedes-Benz conducted the Most Valuable Fan campaign, designed for Russian e-sports fans. The main stage of the campaign will be the ESL One Hamburg 2019 tournament, which was supported by the auto giants. The most dedicated fan was awarded a Mercedes-Benz A-Class. Similar gifts from Mercedes have repeatedly received the best e-sportsmen of Russia.
Another example of large advertising profits, partially related to broadcasts, was the eSports Starts with You project, implemented with the support of MegaFon. He was even awarded at the MarSpo Awards 2019 with the award for "Best Sponsorship Integration in eSports." The operator held one of the largest events in the post-Soviet space MegaFon Winter Clash with a prize fund of $ 300 thousand, the broadcast of which was watched by several thousand people. Sometimes itās customary to share the profit from advertising and broadcasting, however, it should be remembered that full and truly massive advertising is impossible without integrating the brand into the streams. Esports streams are, without exaggeration, billions of views.
It is interesting that if earlier traditional IT companies, Internet corporations and iron producers were the main buyers of streaming advertising, today it can be retailers, auto giants, clothing manufacturers and even food companies, for example, PepsiCo. It is likely that competitions in games with a military theme in the future will interest manufacturers of weapons and ammunition.
Game Space Branding
If we talk about money in e-sports, then one cannot but mention the wider opportunities for branding and a selective approach. So, for example, for broadcasting, you can brand the textures of the game or the players themselves, while targeting the displays of a particular advertisement.
Advertising efficiency may be higher than that in broadcasting or in the stadium, with the cost being lower and the targeting more flexible. For example, if a child watches a broadcast, then they wonāt show him vodka ads, and if an adult is over 39 with an average income, heāll probably find a new sort of whiskey on the walls of some textural structure in cs go. In this case, classical broadcasting can only target by region, but does not know anything about its viewers.
Betting and eSports analytics
This segment of the market is already starting to be used, the sports betting industry has already integrated eSports and in the future this segment will only grow. Perhaps the most famous e-sports betting bookmaker is Parimatch. Esports has no developed sports analytics like football, for example, but as you know, there is no holy place in the void and very soon we will see an aggressive expansion of e-sports forecasters into the unoccupied segment.
All sorts of vprognoze.ru and similar services are already trying to analyze and predict something using classical methods familiar to traditional sports forecasts. Time will pass and e-sports will have its own forecasting methodology, which means that the results of forecasters will be better and their popularity will grow. Already today statistics in the Wordstat show thousands of requests regarding bets on popular e-sports, for example, cs go, āforecast csā - 1 844 requests, ācs go rateā - 11 799 requests, etc.
The problem is that for those who invest in e-sports, betting and forecasting are not a way to monetize. At least, I donāt know of cases when an investor would create a risky bookmaker or kapper business. This segment is on the periphery of the interests of large companies investing in e-sports, and is perceived only as an additional popularizing factor.
Legionnaires for sale
Esports has already come to the traditional football practice of trading in legionnaires. Prices are not so astronomical as in football, but given the instant market growth of +20% per year, this time is just around the corner. Thus, an investor, investing in a team and subsequently selling its composition, can repeatedly pay back the investments. As the practice of hockey and football shows, legionnaires are not getting cheaper, they are only getting more expensive.
Interestingly, in China, many girls are already striving to marry e-sportsmen, as their incomes often exceed those in traditional sports, even in football. In South Korea, e-sports training has been put on stream, universities have been created to teach several e-sports disciplines. Today, the value of a good player can exceed several hundred thousand dollars. Wang, that in a year or two the bar will be above a million.
Total
Not all the trends that exist in the monetization of e-sports, but the most obvious, are described above. There is a common belief that after 10 years eSports will almost completely replace traditional types, write whether you agree with such forecasts. Perhaps you know other ways to profit from eSports and we will be grateful if you share this knowledge in the comments, we will be grateful for any interesting opinion regarding the topic.
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