by Enrico Bonetti
A layman may consider the term e-sport a synonym for video games, a cross for many parents and a delight for many children. In fact, there's the same difference between video games and e-sports as between kids' backyard football matches and the Premier League. The former are a simple opportunity for recreation and socialising, the latter a business worth several million.
To understand the extent of the phenomenon (and its prospects), just look at some numbers. The turnover of the e-sports industry has now exceeded one and a half billion dollars; spectators of competitions are more than 400 million worldwide and will reach 700 million in 2025; the most watched single event, held in Singapore in 2021, had an audience of over 5 million viewers; the professional player who has earned the most from his activity is the Danish Johan Sundstein, also known as N0tail, with a cumulative prize pool of over 7 million dollars.
A complex ecosystem. However, e-sports are an interesting business not only in terms of numbers, but also for the variety of players who are part of it and for the complex network of relationships that exist within it. The Italian E-Sports Observatory has effectively mapped this rich ecosystem and the main players include: publishers, ie the companies that make video games and hold their licenses (EA, Activision, Riot Games, etc.); competitions, which can be organized by the publishers themselves or by third parties (such as King e-sport); broadcasters, i.e. streaming platforms, such as Twitch or TikTok, which broadcast competitions and related content; e-sport makers, i.e. professional players and the teams that hire them to participate in tournaments (among those with the greatest following in Italy are QLASH, Exeed, Mkers, Mako Esports and Tempra Esports); content creators, who are gamers with their own channels on streaming platforms, who sometimes also participate in competitions; fans, who follow competitions, teams or individual players; and, finally, the big brands (Adidas, Red Bull, Amazon, etc.), which sponsor the competitions (such as the e-Serie A Tim), the teams (such as Samsung Morning Stars), or simply use the platforms which broadcast the competitions to carry out targeted advertising activities.
E-sports also present a plurality of revenue models: publishers earn from the sale of licenses and rights to competition organizers and broadcasters; streamers earn from sponsorships, the sale of advertising on their channels and donations from the fan base; the revenues of the teams can instead come from jackpots, sponsorships and the sale of merchandising; competition organizers derive their income from the sale of broadcasting rights (for the most important events) and from sponsorships.
An opportunity to exploit for marketing. Since the sources from which to generate revenues are different, consequently, the marketing approaches that can be used in this sector can also be very varied. The result of all this is that for marketers e-sports represent a great opportunity: that of entering an unexplored business with certain potential; that of presiding over and getting to know one of the worlds in which Generation Z is most at ease; that of experimenting with new marketing solutions, which combine traditional techniques, such as sponsorships and mass media advertising, with innovative techniques, such as social media marketing, influencer marketing and branded content.
What we learn. First, that marketing must be concerned not only with the development of new products and services, but also (and above all) with creating new and original sources of revenue, which can arise precisely from new and original ways of using a product or service (in this case sports). Second, it is confirmed that to reach new segments (Gen Z) it is necessary to build new contents (e-sports), which require new communication channels (streaming platforms), which function according to (partly) new marketing rules.
Finally, that the impact that a new generation can produce should never be underestimated. By now, the advent of each new generation revolutionizes business and ways of using goods and services; if Boomers and Gen X fueled the rise of traditional mass media and Millennials fueled the rise of platforms, then Gen Z could transform the way people watch sports and perhaps even the types of sports they care about, so much so that Peter Moore, CEO of Liverpool, lucidly declared: «The real opponent of football today is called Fortnite»!
Henry Bonetti he is Full Professor of Marketing at the Luigi Vanvitelli University of Campania.
