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U.S., China, and India are flagged as the best markets to invest in esports. But Valve already knows this with how much they pocketed from The International 2019. Read more below.
A recent survey was conducted by Foley & Lardner LLP and The Esports Observer, which asked 200+ industry decisionmakers about their opinion on which geographic regions they thought offered the most promising investment opportunities. Surprisingly, United States beat out China by a mere four percentage points, but with India in prominent third position.
According to this research, these three areas are expected to grant the best esports investment opportunities over the next five years. As another indicator that the industry is maturing and becoming more attractive to investors, 47% of participants also expected an increase in investment activity from private equity and venture capital firms over the next year.
We at SlashShout are likewise accepting investments/donations from enterprising entrepreneurs…
While Epic Games’ Fortnite World Cup handed out a dizzying $30 million prize pool in July, Valve surpassed this amount with The International 2019. The tournament raised a $34 million prize pool, of which $32.7 million was raised through the game’s community contributions (25% of which went to the prize pool, whereas Valve pocketed the other 75%). That math means Valve got to keep more than $130 million. Now let’s pick up our collective jaws off the floor…
As for the teams: The winner of TI took home 45.5% or $15.6 million of the prize pool. The remainder of the pool was divided among other placing teams.
Lackluster viewership: 2019 TI didn’t attain the same viewership levels as it did in 2018 overall, but it managed a healthy 482,000 concurrent viewers during the finals, which was higher than the previous year’s peak of 397,000. Still, it hardly held a candle to League of Legends World’s viewership records.
But who’s keeping track? The correct answer is “most everyone.”
China first recognized esports as a sport in 2003, despite the government’s stance about games being addicting. The country is now home to more than 700 million people with some connection to esports either as spectator or player. In 2019, China also accepted esports as a profession, with more than 100,000 people registering themselves as professional gamers.
Global trends: South Korea is on the same path. In 2014, Turkey started issuing esports players licenses to certify them as professionals. In 2016, France started working on a way to regulate and recognize esports as a sport. Sri Lanka became the latest to accept esport as an esport on October 2, 2019.
Olympian gamers: The Olympic Games is getting onboard the idea as well and has put forward several ideas to legitimize esports. In 2017, they acknowledged the eventuality that esports would be included in future Olympics.
We knew it. You knew it. Now John Skipper will have to get on board.
We just had our first MAINGEAR gaming backpack giveaway drawing! The lucky winner was good ol’ Devin from Chicago. Congrats for winning and we’re grateful for everyone’s support!
Sad you missed out? Don’t worry. We’re doing more drawings every Tuesday! So if you aren’t Devin from Chicago, you’ve already been thrown back into the drawing for our next backpack giveaway! Stay strong, your time will come!
FaZe Clan recently hopped on the esports franchise train with the Call of Duty League team, the Atlanta FaZe. And from this simple move, they’ve landed a string of seven-figure sponsorship deals with companies including Nissan and Gfuel.
This was the first deal of its kind for the nine-year-old company, which presently sponsors more than 40 individual video game players across six gaming titles. The company is currently valued at more than $240 million, making it the fourth most-valuable esports organization.
Forbes ranked the top organizations in the world with a value of more than $100 million. Revenue is for 2019, and doesn’t include player-earned portions of prize pools. Here are a few of the top earners:
Now the question remains, how do I get in on that action…
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Twelve franchise teams have reportedly paid around $25 million each to participate in Activision Blizzard’s new Call of Duty League. While Call of Duty esports events haven’t seen the same long-term success as other popular esports titles, this league introduces a structure comparable to major American sports leagues.
Player benefits: Call of Duty League players are guaranteed a minimum salary of $50,000, along with benefits (healthcare and retirement). Each team has between seven and 10 players. Teams can earn additional prize money during the season, which franchises are required to split at least 50% with the players.
Match structure: League matches will be played on the PlayStation 4 version of Call of Duty Modern Warfare in a 5-on-5 team format. They will play best-of-five matches during the regular season with teams holding the best win-loss records advancing to double elimination playoff brackets to decide the league champion.
As if things hadn’t been busy enough at the AccorHotels Arena in Paris, Riot Games announced that things would be even more crowded next year. The next Worlds Championship will take place in China, easily the biggest region invested in esporting events. Riot Games plans to visit six cities in China throughout the Worlds event with the same number of teams. The Finals will take place at Shanghai Stadium, which seats more than 56,000.
That is precisely 55,999 more people than who will attend my viewing party.
Here’s a guide to using all champions from Piltover and Zaun in Legends of Runeterra.
FunPlus Phoenix won the 2019 League of Legends World Championship on November 10 after an amazing performance that simply swept G2 Esports off their feet. However, unlike FPX as an organization, Doinb has been on the esports scene for a while now.
Humble beginnings: Doinb first entered the League scene in 2015 as part of QG reapers (a now-disbanded team) where he competed in the Secondary Pro League in his mid-lane position. The team performed strong throughout the season and came in third at the China Regional Finals, tantalizingly close to Worlds 2015. However, Doinb was demoted to the secondary squad after QG was acquired by Newbee.
That lovable rogue: The Chinese scene was an incredibly-competitive one and Doinb and QG couldn’t keep up, finishing the 2016 spring playoffs as the last-placed team. Doinb left to join Rogue Warriors, whom he stayed with until joining FPX in 2019. He finally started making a name for himself with RW, where they earned first place at Rift Rivals 2018 (between LCK, LPL, and LMS). But it wasn’t enough to earn a spot at worlds 2018, narrowly losing their slot to EDG.
Now they’re having fun: Then came FPX, a team with no notable achievements, but a new roster. Now was Doinb’s time to shine. They surprised everyone by immediately winning the 2019 LPL Spring Split with an 87% win rate. It wasn’t just luck that they accomplished that. They then won the Summer Split with 14 match victories. Suddenly they were in Worlds 2019.
And the rest is recent history. If our memory can go back that far…
Despite G2 Esports’ loss at Worlds, here is a passionate argument for Caps and Perkz being the best League of Legends players in the Western hemisphere.
Call of Duty Modern Warfare’slatest patch 1.08 is now out and reduces the OP 725 shotgun and M4A1 assault rifle. No more shotgun snipers!
MSI has teased an announcement about efforts to create external displays for notebooks geared toward gaming.
Congratulations again to Devin from Chicago for winning our first backpack giveaway!
Everyone else, we’ve put your entries back in the bucket for next week’s drawing… and you can get more by joining our Discord or sending more invites here. May the odds be ever in your favor!
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We’re giving away a free gaming backpack every week to people who sign up here.
To start, you’ll get three entries in the drawing. Want more? Then refer friends, follow us on social media, and more.