SXSWORLD

Photo courtesy of ELEAGUE/Turner Sports ESPORTS! How Online Gaming Leagues Have Become Bigger Than Basketball ... Seriously By JaRed duBin 2 8 SXS W O R L D | N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 6 | SXSW.COM   ou might think that the massive popularity of eSports, or com- petitive video gaming, is something that just bubbled up overnight. And even if you know that eSports has become more and more popular over the last few years, it is possible that you think the phenomenon is still just a curiosity and not a booming worldwide business. You are wrong.  In 2013, the global eSports audience was estimated to be some 71.5 million people. That's already more people than live in the U.K. or France. Within two years, though, that figure rose a whop- ping 216 percent to an incredible 226 million people in 2015. More people watched the League of Legends World Championship (36 million) than Game 7 of the NBA Finals (31 million). The Super Bowl was the only live sporting event that had more viewers.  What does that translate to in terms of business? How about $325 million in 2015? How about a projected $463 million in 2016? And how about an estimated one billion dollars by 2019?  But even that growth would not have been possible without the foundation created in years past. "The growth has been more steady than it seems," explained Jared Wynne, Business Development Manager at The Daily Dot, who is heavily involved in the eSports space. "Most people think it kind of blew up a few years ago. Really, it's been a case of slowly building up over the course of a couple decades. You have to go back to the late '90s to find the origins of programs and competitions that we have now. You have to go back to the early '00s to find the origins of league play and competitions."  It is not just the viewership and revenue that have been pushed forward, either. It's also the technology. The streaming service Twitch.tv, which first launched in 2011, has become a huge part of

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