Recently ESports has gained popularity. ESports has millions of fans around the world, and it is worth millions also. What is it exactly? Esports is the term to describe organized multiplayer video game competitions, particularly between professional players. Some popular genres are Real Time Strategy, First Person Shooters, Fighting, and Multiplayer Online Battle Arenas. Some of the most popular games are League of Legends, Dota 2, Counter Strike, Starcraft, and Call of Duty. According to Twitch, a popular streaming website for ESports, there are over 100 million viewers per month on the site.

ESports is on a rise, appealing to people of all age groups and backgrounds. The most popular ESport, League of Legends, had a championship in October of 2013. 32 Million people watched the competition online via streaming services like Twitch, Youtube and other smaller websites. The NBA Playoffs and the MLB World Series in 2014 only attracted around 30 million combined. Let that sink in, the championships for a video game received more viewership than the NBA and MLB combined in the same year. Pretty amazing. Traditional Sports are now starting to fall behind in viewership compared to ESport competitions.

ESports competitions are receiving huge prize pools. The prize pool for the next Dota 2 championship is over $18 million. The prize pool for the last League of Legends championship was in the millions also. Many teams in these competitions and players receive huge sponsorships. Companies like Ford, American Express, and even Coca-Cola gave out multi-million dollar sponsorships. Many of the top players in ESports have millions of fans worldwide and have salaries in the 7 figure range.

Last year in 2014, the State Department began to give out visas to professional ESport players. They were given visas under the same program that traditional athletes used. Colleges are also starting to give out hundreds of thousands of dollars in athletic scholarships to gamers. ESPN also broadcasted the League of Legends Championship and the Dota 2 Championship. It seems like many people, organizations, and even the government are starting to realize the huge impact ESports has.

All of this started a little more than a decade ago. 10 years ago in 2005, there were a couple hundred ESport tournaments around the world, Now there are almost 2000 annually. ESports are becoming a big part of many peoples lives, and are rivaling tradition sports. Soon, it may be a normal occurrence to turn on the TV and see a League of Legends or Dota 2 Championship next to all of your other favorite shows.