During the entirety of the year 2020, a lot of industries had faced the most challenging year they had so far. Most were forced to be put on a halt. The entertainment industry did not see any new movie shown in theaters for most of the year. A lot of TV shows were either pushed back or delayed indefinitely. When it comes to the sports industry, all games were stopped, seeing that mass gathering and any type of activities with close contact and will attract large crowds was prohibited. Despite all of these, there was one industry, in particular, that managed not only to stay afloat throughout the challenges of the pandemic, but also grew significantly, both in interest and revenue. This is esports.
For the most part, several industries that had their core foundation online, were virtually “pandemic-proof,” in a way. Aside from esports, one more industry that also saw growth in the past year due to the pandemic was online gambling. Due to the land-based casinos being closed down temporarily, bettors turned to online slots, the best online blackjack games, and live casinos to keep their betting hobby going and alive.
By 2021, esports is expected to get bigger. In 2020 alone, the entire esports industry generated a revenue of $1.1 billion, which is 15.7% bigger than 2019’s numbers, according to the Global Esports Market Report 2020. The revenue per year is expected to grow bigger and bigger and by 2023, it is expected that esports will be valued at nearly $1.6 billion, possibly even more.
With that in mind, it is expected that there would be major esports events that will take place this year across the world. Luckily for fans of each game or player, most of these events will be streamed online–no need for you to fly to wherever it is taking place just to witness the games.
Here are some of the most-awaited esports events for 2021.
League of Legends World Championship 2021
The World Championship for Riot Games’ League of Legends will take place in multiple cities across the world for its qualifiers. For its finals, the games would take place in Shenzhen, China.
John Needham, Global Head of Esports at Riot Games, said: “After a year full of unexpected challenges, amazing competition, and major milestones for our sport, we’re looking forward to a season that should be even more thrilling. It’s only fitting that we return to China, home to our biggest league and tens of millions of longtime fans, to produce the world’s highest-caliber esports event in one of China’s most innovative cities.”
DOTA 2′s The International 2021
Known for garnering millions of dollars in prize pool through The International Battle Pass sold to players. For the TI 10 Battle Pass, Valve manages to bring together more than #130 million on gross revenue, with more than $40 million expected to be part of the TI10 prize pool.
Although there is no definite start date for the games yet, it is expected of Valve to kick off this year’s competition (which was actually supposedly last year’s but was only pushed back) sometime around August 2021.
EVO Champions 2021
The Evolution Championship Series, after recovering from a series of controversies, is set to return for the Evo 2021 Online for a span of two weekends–August 6 to 8 and August 13 to 15. As usual, the league would feature four games played across four various regions, which would be Asia, Europe, LATAM, and North America.
More details such as prizes and the full list of eligible countries are expected to be released soon.