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ESports : Top Esports Leagues( PART -I)

Top Esports Leagues
Some top esports leagues in the world are League of Legends (LOL), the Overwatch League, and the CS:GO ESL Pro League.

LEAGUE OF LEGENDS (LOL)
  • LOL is typically characterized as a MOBA (multiplayer online battle arena).
  • It is listed as the most popular esports in the world with 120 million players (on the whole) in 2019.
  • The LOL championship series is the biggest 2019 esports league. 
  • In 2018, it recorded tournament views of about 240 million hours on Twitch and YouTube according to Newzoo.
  • LOL had 14 professional leagues in 2018. However, there are only 5 premier leagues taking part in the LOL championship Series: EU LCS (European), NA LCS (North American), LCK (Korea), LPL (China), and LMS (Master Series in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Macau).
  • North America is still developing its team system when it comes to LOL as Europe and Asia have had more time to perfect. It seems Team Liquid is so far the best team in NA LCS. However, the championship series draws teams worldwide.
  • The championship series tournament drew 75 million viewers in 2018 globally which made it the most-watched esports event in 2018.

OVERWATCH LEAGUE
  • Overwatch League is a league based on overwatch. Overwatch is Blizzard Entertainment's hit the first-person shooter for PC, PS4, and Xbox One. Overwatch League (or OWL) by Blizzard-Activision seems to be the second-largest and most popular league worldwide with 40 million players and a total of 96 million hours of viewers interest.
  • Although it is a comparatively new game, Overwatch has entered its season 2 series with the huge prize pool of approximately $5 million.
  • There is a strict pathway towards the Overwatch League as it follows Overwatch Open Division, Overwatch Contenders Trials, Overwatch Contenders, and finally the Overwatch League.
  • Overwatch League has 20 teams competing — 11 based in the US, 2 in Canada, 4 in China, 2 in Europe and 1 in South Korea.
  • Teams have from 8 to 12 active players, most commonly 9 active players.

COUNTER-STRIKE: GLOBAL OFFENSIVE
  • Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is a first-person shooter league. 
  • Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) is the second most popular esports among viewers with a total of 212 million hours views.
  • CS:GO has three best leagues operating currently which are the ESL Pro League, FACEIT’s Esports Championship Series, and StarLadder’s StarSeries i-League.
  • The ESL Pro League is the largest one encompassing 4 regions and is known to have the biggest prize pool.
  • The ESL Pro League covers Europe, North and Latin America, and Asia-Pacific. It has a winning prize pool of $2 million. 
  • Every region is divided into 4 groups consisting of 4 teams. The winners of each group go directly to the finals and the rest compete again in 2 groups consisting of 4 players.
  • Players in the Asia-Pacific region play online, while the ones in Europe and the Americas stay offline.
  • Although CS:GO has about 17.22 million monthly active users as of August 2019, it is still the second most popular esports to be watched.


Top Esports Events
Some top esports events in the world are The International DOTA 2 Championships, Fortnite World Cup Finals, and League of Legends Championship Series.

THE INTERNATIONAL DOTA 2 CHAMPIONSHIPS
  • This is an annual world tournament for DOTA 2 players where the top 18 teams of the season come together to battle for a championship and the right to win the biggest prize pool in esports history.
  • It is usually held in different locations worldwide, annually, with the latest edition in Shanghai, China's Mercedes-Benz Arena in 2019.
  • The tournament usually holds in August.
  • 18 teams participate with up to 100 players overall.
  • In 2018, the tournament had a huge prize pool of $25 million, which was surpassed this year with a prize pool of $34 million, therefore making it one of the biggest events of 2019.

FORTNITE WORLD CUP FINALS
  • The Fortnite World Cup Finals is an annual esports competition based on the video game Fortnite, which is a third-person online battle-royale action game that is usually split into two different events.
  • One event is for solo players, and the other for two-player teams or duos, and usually involves up to 100 players doing battle to win by being the last person standing.
  • It is usually held in different locations worldwide, annually, with the latest edition in New York City, at the Arthur Ashe Stadium in 2019.
  • This esports event is usually held in July of every year.
  • Up to 50 teams participate with 100 players overall.
  • Over 23,000 viewers were at the stadium venue, as well as an estimated 2.3 million concurrent viewers on Twitch and YouTube streaming services. The event had a prize pool of $30 million.

LEAGUE OF LEGENDS CHAMPIONS SERIES
  • It is a top-level professional league that is split into two seasons and two sections each — the Spring and Summer splits — with a short split playoff game and mid-season invitational tournament in between.
  • At the end of the season, "the winner of the summer split, the team with the most championship points, and the winner of the gauntlet tournament qualify for the annual league of legends world championship".
  • Except for some touring events, all the events are usually held at the Riot Games' studios in Los Angeles, California.
  • The tournament usually holds around January each year. 
  • 10 teams from North America compete whereby each team plays each other twice, for a total of 90 games. Teams are then ranked by win margins, with any tied match being split by tiebreaker games if necessary at the end of the regular seasons.
  • The audience size usually involves viewers regularly numbering above 200,000 for regular season play, and with over 1.7 million unique visitors.
  • The prize pool is over $20million.
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Top Esports Teams
Team Liquid, Evil Geniuses, and Team OG are the top three esports teams in the world. The top game played by all three teams is Dota. Detailed findings of our research have been presented below.

TEAM LIQUID
  • Total Prize Money Earned: $24,448,847 
  • Total Tournaments Played: 1,430 
  • Description: Team Liquid was established in 2000 and it has won over 60 championships in 14 of the most popular esport games since then. They started off as a gaming community website and hired their first professional player in 2010. In 2017, Team Liquid's Dota 2 team won The International 7 tournament.
  • Esports played:
  • Dota ($17,336,099), Counter-Strike ($1,772,175), and StarCraft ($1,361,490) are the top esports played.
  •  Fortnite, PUBG, League of Legends, Heroes of the Storm, Super Smash Bros, Street Fighter, Apex Legends, Arena of Valor, Artifact, Auto Chess, Call of Duty, Clash Royale, FIFA, Halo, Hearthstone, Magic the Gathering, Overwatch, Quake, Rainbow Six, and Tekken are other esports played by Team Liquid.
  • Financial benefits:
  • The top 5 players make between $3.53 million and $4.46 million.
  •  Thirty-eight players make over $100,000.
  • The 100th-most-earning player makes $15,209.
  • Type of content produced:
  • Team Liquid's video content production arm, 1UP Studios, produces "high-quality documentary-style film making and creative commercial content".
  • It has a wiki network, Liquipedia, which is the most widely used resource in the industry.
  • Team Liquid also runs an influencer management agency, Liquid Media, through which it manages some top names in esports.

EVIL GENIUSES
  • Total Prize Money Earned: $20,751,172 
  • Total Tournaments Played: 737 
  • Description: Evil Geniuses was founded as a Counter-Strike team in 1999. It is owned by the GoodGame Agency, a subsidiary of Amazon’s Twitch. It is mainly focused on North America and has only recently started tapping into the Asian market.
  • Esports played:
  • Dota 2X ($17,870,742), StarCraft / StarCraft 2 ($798,548), and Call of Duty ($781,050) are the top esports played.
  •  Fighting Games, Counter-Strike, Rainbow Six Siege, Rocket League, Artifact, Call of Duty 4, Dual FPS, Gwent, League of Legends, PUBG, Warcraft 3, and World of Warcraft are other esports played by Evil Geniuses.
  • Financial benefits:
  • The top 5 players make between $1.81 million and $3.57 million.
  •  Eighteen players make over $100,000.
  • The 100th-most-earning player makes $5,125.00.
  • Type of content produced:
  • Evil Geniuses player, Attach, creates content on YouTube and can also be caught live on Twitch.
  • Evil Geniuses has partnered with FVBET, a content company based in the Philippines, to expand its audience base in Asia.
  • Streamer Grant Harris, known as “GrandGrant”, is a caster, commentator, and casual player who has partnered with Evil Genius.

TEAM OG
  • Total Prize Money Earned: $17,563,028 
  • Total Tournaments Played: 50 
  • Description: Team OG was founded as Monkey Business in 2015. The team made a mark at the Frankfurt Major in 2015. They are the "first team in Dota 2 to win four Dota Major Championships".
  • Esports played: Dota 2 ($17,562,067) and Super Smash Bros ($960) are the only games played by Team OG
  • Financial benefits:
  • The top 5 players make between $5.41 million and $6.66 million.
  •  Ten players make over $100,000.
  • The 22nd-most-earning player makes $191.
  • Type of content produced:
  • Team OG creates exclusive content in the Chinese language and uses Weibo and WeChat to connect with fans.
  •  Jesse Vainikka and Johan Sundstein are top Dota2 players who are on Team OG. They are popular esports influencers and promote RedBull on social media, which is Team OG's official sponsor and partner.
  • RedBull created the media content pertaining to the Team OG's participation in The International 7. In 2019, Red Bull Media House also released a documentary on Team OG's run at The International 8.


Esports: Cloud 9
Jack and Paullie Etienne founded Cloud9 in 2013. Cloud9’s teams compete in games such as Hearthstone, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Fortnite, and others. The company’s 2018 estimated revenue was $22 million. 

OVERVIEW OF CLOUD9

TEAM STRUCTURE

MAJOR SPONSORS/PARTNERSHIPS
  • Cloud9’s current sponsors/partners are Hyper X, BMW, AT&T, Omen, Puma, Microsoft, Red Bull, Secret Labs, and Twitch.
  •  Microsoft was the latest company to sign a partnership agreement with Cloud9. In May 2019, Microsoft became an “Official Technology Partner and the Official Performance Analytics Partner” of Cloud9.
  •  AT&T and Puma are the other companies that became Cloud9’s sponsors/partners in 2019. 

ANNUAL REVENUE, VALUATION, AND FUNDING RAISED
Cloud9’s estimated revenue for 2018 was $22 million.
The company’s valuation as of 2018 was $310 million.
Cloud9 has raised $73 million in funding to date. 

MANAGEMENT STRUCTURE
 Jack Etienne has been serving as the CEO of Cloud9 since the company was founded in 2013.
 Paullie Etienne has been serving as the COO since 2013.
The other known members of Cloud9’s management team are Jordan Udko (EVP Commercial Partnerships since 2017) and Eunice Chen (VP of Marketing since 2018).


Esports Audience Demographics
The demographic profile of esports viewers reveal that viewership is male-dominated and most popular among millennials. The majority of esports viewers are concentrated in the APAC region and are among those employed in full-time jobs and of middle-class status.

AGE
  • The majority of esports fans are millennials between the ages of 18-34. In the US, millennials account for 62% of esports viewers.
  • The median age of US viewers is 28, with 39% of the total audience in the 25-34 age cohort.
  •  38% of the esports audience worldwide falls within the age cohort 16-24 and 35% between the age 25-34.
  • The cohort with the least viewers worldwide was reported as falling between the ages of 55-64.
  • The cohort with the second least amount of viewership are those aged 45-54, with a viewership of only 6%.

GENDER
Esports fans are more likely to be males.
The Esport’s Trend Report 2018 reveals that esports viewers are 29% female and 71% male.
However, there has been an increase in female viewership. Female viewership has increased by 6.5% in 2 years.

LOCATION/RESIDENCE
  • Unlike many traditional sports, the audience for esports is truly global.
  • Statista reports that over half of the world’s frequent esports viewers and enthusiasts can be found in the Asia Pacific region.
  • In the United States, there are approximately 84 million esports viewers.
  • The ‘Big Six’ countries, Vietnam, Thailand, Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore, account for 99% of the region’s (Asia Pacific) esports revenue.

INCOME LEVEL AND EMPLOYMENT STATUS
  • Esports fans are among the affluent in society.
  • The Esports Trends Report 2019 reported that majority of esports viewers, that is 46% of respondents, fell within the middle income bracket.
  •  27% of viewers fell within the higher income bracket and 22% of viewers fell within the lower income bracket.
  • The Esports Observer reported that 61% of the United States over age 18 viewers are earning in excess of $50,000 yearly, which falls within the country’s middle income bracket.
  • Esports viewers have reported higher than average household incomes.

EMPLOYMENT
Esports viewers are more likely to maintain full-time employment and have high household incomes.
A factor which contributes to the boom in the esports market in Southeast Asia is growing regional incomes. These countries have flourishing economies and a growing middle class population, thus allowing more disposable income to be available for entertainment.
In the United States, 55% of esports viewers are employed in full time employment.
In China, esports viewers are even more likely to be employed with 75% holding full time jobs.

RACE
The majority of esports viewership is concentrated in the Asia Pacific.
This therefore means that majority of esports viewer are likely to be of Asian ethnicity.
A 2016 report on the distribution of esports fans in the United States broken down by ethnicity reported that 12% of US esports enthusiasts were of Hispanic descent and 11% were identified as Asian descent.

LEVEL OF EDUCATION
In the United States, esports viewers are among the most educated in the country’s population.
Nearly half of esports viewers in the United States hold a college degree.
In China, 71% of esports viewers hold a college degree.

HERE IS THE 2nd part: E-sports part - II

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