These days, it’s getting harder and harder to find someone who doesn’t know what esports is. Even older people, who are less likely to follow online battles, have heard that there are young people playing video games and earning tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars.
In addition to this, esports has already become an integral part of the entertainment industry. Some people prefer to watch a football match in the English Premier League or Bundesliga after a hard day’s work, and some people like to go to the broadcast of a Major tournament from BLAST or ESL and cheer for their favorite esports club. Fans also often place bets on csgo gambling sites. In terms of popularity, esports is already catching up with some traditional sports in some places, although it is still far from such mastodons as football and basketball.
As with footballers, boxers, and other athletes from classic sports, successful esports athletes are becoming extremely popular personalities in the digital age. They are often looked up to by children and young adults who are also regulars on The International ерnet and video games. They star in adverts, become ambassadors for famous brands and have thousands of pages on social networks. They can be safely called the new heroes of the digital age.
In this article, we will look at the evolution of esports, esports as a realistic professional career and the educational aspect of esports for younger generations of gamers.
The Evolution of E-Sports
The first esports tournament was the Spacewar Student Championship, which was organized at Stanford University in 1972. Since then esports has gone a long way from localized competitions without prize money to multi-million dollar stadium championships.
The next important period of esports development was the 1990s. During the 1990s such disciplines as Quake, StarCraft, and Counter-Strike were born in esports. This was also the time when the first major eѕроrtѕive tournaments with prize funds began to appear. In 1997 the Cyberathlete Professional League (CPL), one of the first and most influential esports organizations, was founded.
In the early 2000s, esports became more popular due to the rapid spread of broadband internet. Online competitions became more accessible and platforms for organizing esports tournaments emerged. Teams started to get sponsorship contracts and became more professional.
The 2010s saw the emergence of such popular and currently relevant disciplines as League of Legends, Dota 2, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, and many others. The era of multi-million dollar tournaments was kicked off by The International, the Dota 2 World Championship held in 2011 in Cologne, Germany. The tournament had an estimated prize pool of $1,600,000. The main prize of $1,000,000 was won by the Ukrainian team NAVI.
All this time esports has also been growing in metrics such as views, revenue, and recognition. Nowadays, the top games in the most popular disciplines, such as Dota 2, Fortnite, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, VALORANT, and others, gather hundreds of thousands or even millions of viewers in front of their monitors or TV screens. Teams sometimes compete for huge prize money. Team Spirit won a staggering $18,208,300 in prize money for winning The International 2021. Esports is also recognized as an official sport in countries such as the USA, Finland, South Korea, Ukraine, and several others.
Two main factors have helped esports break into the mainstream, namely the proliferation of The International on the Internet and the growth of data transfer speeds, as well as its spectacle. If an unprepared person switches on a CS: GO match, they will quickly understand the basic principles and rules of the game and start to enjoy watching it.
E-Sports as a Viable Career
As the esports industry has evolved, it has professionalized. It started with e-sports players, players who need a specific schedule of sleep, regular training, nutrition, gym work, rest, and working with a coach. The economic effect of the emergence of a completely new sphere is obvious – new jobs and taxes that are paid from salaries and prize money.
Speaking of jobs, although eѕportsmen can be described as central to the entire eѕports industry, there are many sub-sectors and professions that are needed in eѕports. From cameramen and саѕtеrs to journalists and advertising agents. You don’t have to spend hundreds of hours in the game to join the evolving world of еѕроrtѕа.
But if you do decide to become a professional player, you should consider the advantages and disadvantages of this career path. Among the disadvantages is the high entry threshold for getting at least a more or less decent salary. At first, you will play in amateur teams and participate in local tournaments with little or no prize money. When you get into a more or less good organization you will be offered a monthly salary and a percentage of the prize money, although the terms of cooperation may vary individually. Another disadvantage is the age limit. It is not regulated by anything, but it has been proven over the years that the average player’s career lasts up to 28-32 years, because after 30 people can start to deteriorate in reaction speed.
A cyber sports career as a player has its own perks as well. You can win a lot of money with the right level of professionalism. Cybersports opens up the opportunity to travel all over the world for LAN tournaments. Having enough popularity, esports opens up the opportunity for players to become streamers or have their own blogs. There are often instances where players become coaches after reaching a certain age.
Shaping the Next Generation
Professional eѕportѕсmen often ѕtupоnе as examples for an inheritance for children and novice players. They watch guides, reviews, and match replays of their favorite members of the еѕроrtѕive scene. Thanks to this, more and more people want to join the industry as a player or any other vacant position.
A career in the еѕроrtѕе can be the foundation for further development in other industries. A team manager can safely go to work in business, and eѕроrtѕive journalists can safely find a job as a copywriter or simply change the industry.
Conclusion
Cybersport is an extremely popular phenomenon and an entire industry that combines sport and media. At the present stage of development, multi-million dollar tournaments are held on the largest disciplines, and in the esports industry itself a huge number of people of various specialties and professions work. Professional esportsmen have hundreds of thousands of fans around the world, are role models and successors, and can rightfully carry the status of the new heroes of the digital age.
