eSports Roundup: Epic Raises Prize Money To $20 Million; Simplicity Moves Toward IPO

Dota, Counter-Strike and League of Legends may not mean anything to most readers, but to those involved in the burgeoning eSports business, the top three most popular video games mean only one thing: big money.

How big?

Well, according to a blog post by Fortnite developer Epic Games, $20 million in prize money big.

“Our overall goal is to create better consistency throughout the year and tie the 2021 seasons together for a more cohesive experience,” Epic said. “For 2021, the pinnacle of Fortnite Competitive, FNCS, will have $20,000,000 in prizes — compared to $17,000,000 in 2020 — and format tweaks also after considering player feedback.”

And that is only one game — a tiny slice of a much bigger pie.

The Increasingly Big eSports Picture

The big picture, as told by gaming intelligence firm Newzoo, pegged the current total global eSports audience at 495 million as of 2020. By comparison, the World Series last year had the lowest ratings in history, with an average of just 9.7 million viewers for the six games that aired on Fox.

While “the NBA, NHL and MLB all suffered double-digit domestic viewership declines [last] year,” SportsProMedia reports, the eSports audience was up about 12 percent last year, and is targeted to approach 650 million by 2023, Newzoo data shows.

As much as the eSports teams — and game names — may sound unfamiliar to most adults over 40, they are no more unusual and foreign-sounding than the songs and artists in the Spotify Top 50, including Bad Bunny, The Weeknd and 24kGoldn … and they’re every bit as lucrative.

It’s simply another world that is living, breathing and growing like crazy right beneath our noses — and invisibly succeeding, out of sight to much of the “grown-up” population.

The Investor Angle

As Epic raises its prize-winning stakes, other gaming companies are actively increasing the cash-raising stakes with investors, as two major companies made separate announcements this week concerning their publicly traded securities.

For one, in pre-IPO filings posted by Simplicity Esports and Gaming, the Florida-based company elaborated on the continued global growth of its business and the industry, by both participants and spectators.

“The advent of online streaming technology has turned eSports into a global industry that includes professional players and teams competing in major events that are simultaneously watched in person in stadiums and by online viewers, which regularly exceed 1,000,000 viewers for major tournaments,” Simplicity said.

For its part, Simplicity said it “[owns and manages] numerous professional eSports teams domestically and internationally,” which generate revenue through prize winnings, corporate sponsorships, advertising, league subsidy payments and potential league revenue-sharing payments from the publishers of video games.

At the same time,  Esports Entertainment Group, which listed its stock on the NASDAQ last April, announced this week that its stock options were now trading on the CBOE.

“The listing of options on our stock is yet another important milestone achievement,” said Grant Johnson, CEO of Esports Entertainment Group. “With options trading on our stock, we can potentially reach an even wider investor audience with our exciting growth story.”

The Academic Angle

One of the areas where eSports teams are gaining traction is in colleges and universities, such as East Tennessee State, which offers three full varsity-level scholarships to gamers and just announced the formation of a third team to compete in the Rockley League this fall.

This at a time when college campuses and classrooms — let alone team sports — have struggled to adapt in the face of rolling closures and restrictions brought on by the pandemic.

“Part of the beauty of the start of the spring semester is the opportunity for things to begin anew, and you see that here with the start of these new opportunities,” said ETSU President Dr. Brian Noland, while noting that the eSports program draws students to the school.

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