With both people and money, will the world's largest e-sports market usher in a better spring?

In 2014, Chinese e-sports players surpassed South Korea for the first time with an income of 12.01 million US dollars, becoming the world's number one. Recently, data showed that this advantage continued to widen last year, with Chinese players ranking first in the 2015 global e-sports market rankings with an income of 14.08 million US dollars.

100 million mass base

There was a widely circulated saying in the e-sports community: There are 80 million gamers in the world, and China accounts for 40 million. Although the number is debatable, it is no exaggeration to say that China has become the world's largest e-sports market. However, facing this first place, the Chinese may lack some justified pride. In terms of policy, the domestic game market has been fully opened for less than two years, and the status of e-sports players as athletes has not been recognized. To this day, in the minds of many people, e-sports is still "a low-level thing."

Little do you know that you may have already become a member of the e-sports army even if you don't pay attention to e-sports events. Broadly speaking, participants in any competitive game can be included in the category of e-sports players. According to statistics from iResearch, the number of people participating in e-sports competitions and watching events in my country is growing, and it is expected that the number will exceed 100 million in 2016. This figure is very close to the estimate of Gao Yifan, deputy director of the e-sports department of the Information Center of the General Administration of Sports.

It is said that with the popularization of smart TVs and their auxiliary interactive devices, e-sports will one day replace square dancing and become the number one national fitness sport. At present, various sports such as running, dancing, and playing ball can already be achieved on the e-sports platform.

It can be seen that this character, who once had nicknames such as "digital heroin" and "electronic drugs", is probably not the "public enemy" as people think. On the contrary, he has a broad mass base. Data shows that the 2015 League of Legends S5 digital finals had a maximum of 14 million simultaneous viewers and 36 million unique viewers. In the same year, the average number of viewers of the NBA Finals on ABC TV in the United States was 19.94 million.

Huge capital leverage

The exposure of the huge income of e-sports practitioners is also an important factor that forces the public to re-examine this industry. Recently, Valve announced that the prize money for this year's "Counter-Strike Global Offensive" e-sports competition will increase significantly, and the prize money for each "grand championship" will be increased to 1 million US dollars. Previously, the media broke the news that the annual income of the anchors on the game live broadcast platform can be as high as 10 million, which is indeed astonishing.

Perhaps it was from the high-profile entry of Wang Sicong, the husband of the nation, into the e-sports circle that “not short of money” has almost become a label for the Chinese e-sports market. Whether it is the 70,000 yuan reward to the female anchor or the 80 million yuan investment in Hero Entertainment, capital always promotes the rise of the industry with a strong attitude. YY, Proust Capital, Sequoia Capital, Jinya Technology and Zhejiang Daily Media have invested a total of about 1 billion yuan in the e-sports industry. At the end of last year, A-share listed company Rhine Sports acquired a chain of e-sports halls. It is rumored that LeTV Sports, whose valuation may exceed 2 billion US dollars in the new round, will also step up mergers and acquisitions and layout in the e-sports field in the future.

In addition, the participation of celebrities has made it a highly topical field. Chen He, Angelababy, Jay Chou, Duan Xuan, JJ Lin, and Jolin Tsai have all appeared on the e-sports stage. Recently, China Digital Culture announced that the company and Jay Chou have reached in-depth cooperation in the field of e-sports and plan to jointly establish an e-sports team company in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Taiwan.

At the same time, mainstream media reports on e-sports reveal favorable policy trends. Coupled with the presence of capital and audiences in the upstream and downstream of the industry chain, e-sports has almost become a new outlet in the Chinese market. The expected market size of tens of billions and hundreds of billions is really exciting, and people can't wait to join this hot sunrise industry and make a fortune. The more so, the more we should clearly realize that at present, the professional level of China's e-sports market is not high, the business operation model is not perfect, and there is a lack of rules. The previous achievements were to a certain extent attributed to the demographic dividend, and there is still a big gap with South Korea's e-sports cultural brand and national strategic height. It can be said that for the Chinese e-sports market, 2015 with 14.08 million US dollars is just the beginning. It is worth looking forward to that with the entry of big players and the improvement of the industrial system, this piece of cake will become bigger and bigger.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.