E-sports is the umbrella term given for the booming industry that has become of professional video gaming. E-sports is no new term, it has been around since the earliest days of professional gaming, but never has it been so popular as today. The most popular e-sport, a computer game named
League of Legends held its 3rd ever world championship in 2013. The event was held in the famous Staples Center, which can hold up to 15,000 people for basketball games. The world championships, as seen to the left, had room for 8,000 seats given the large stage and screens, all of which sold out in no time. E-sports has been growing massively recently, largely thanks to support from online live streaming services such as Twitch and MLG Tv. Not only does e-sports have the popularity to sell out arenas meant for traditional sports, but when looking at the online viewership numbers, they rival the television viewership of major sporting events.
As the chart shows, this event had a total viewership greater than such huge traditional sporting events such as the BCS Championship, the NBA Finals, and the NCAA final four. One has to imagine it won't be long before viewership rivals that of the Super Bowl. Either way, it's clear to say that e-sports is here to stay, as it is extremely popular with the online community, and has been featured multiple times on large TV stations and networks. It's difficult to imagine ESPN showing clips and highlights of pro gamers, but that's a very real possibility for the future given how massively popular e-sports has become.
