One of my fellow Birds had a post relating to the rise of eSports a couple years back. It’s even more of a thing now so I’m writing about it again from a different perspective to focus on a more specific title in the eSports arena. Don’t worry – Jordan and I have a deathmatch scheduled in which we will settle our differences (which I will promptly lose).
The past decade or so has seen the rise of a new form of competition and entertainment, especially in the west. eSports has been a staple of South Korean and Chinese culture for about two decades, and now the rest of the world has begun to pick up the trend. eSports is essentially watching other people play video games, either live and in person or broadcasted in some way. The concept is alien, and completely unattractive to a lot people, but not as many as you might think. King of eSports right now is a game called League of Legends. It’s a game where two teams of 5 players choose a character out of a pool of about 140ish champions and spend 30 to 40 minutes trying to kill each other. It was officially released by Riot Games in 2009 and quickly rose in popularity.
It now boasts a player base of around 150 million people worldwide and has a robust professional tournament league. North America’s LCS (League Championship Series) consists of ten teams and runs from January to September after which the top teams go off to compete in the LOL World Championship. The average professional player begins their career at 18 or 19 and if they are lucky, plays for about a decade. They train by playing the game for 8 to 10 hours a day for at least 5 days a week. It’s essentially their entire life. Who would give up their youth to play a video game, and who would spend time just watching them play?
Well, I can speak to the second question. I watch them play because I started playing the game in 2012 (very badly) and as a hobby it is fun to get together with friends and watch players that are way better than me play a game that I enjoy. I am not alone. The last world championship had over 100 million unique viewers over the course of the tournament. The grand finals peak concurrent viewership was about 46 million.
As for the first question, I’ll give you some numbers and then you can take a guess. This past offseason a top North American team bought out the contract of an EU player named Perkz (Luka Perković) for 6 million dollars. His current reported salary is 2.7 million dollars a year. He is 22 years old. The average salary of a professional starting LCS player is around $400,000 a year… to play a friggin’ video game.
If you want to make a run at a professional career in the LOL scene, go ahead and download the game to get started. It’s free and doesn’t require any crazy computer specs. Be forewarned: this game might ruin your life. It will make you hate yourself and probably everyone you play with at some point in time. Just remember: it’s just a game.