Esports has been growing in popularity in recent years, and the sector has become a lucrative market for advertisers, sponsors and betting operators, according to Dr Brett Abarbanel, speaking to the MaxBet Media team.

What is it?

Dr Brett Abarbanel is a highly experienced academic with extensive knowledge of the video games sector and of the burgeoning esports market. In this discussion, she provides a breakdown of the different dynamics of esports and highlights its potential as a source of revenue and marketing for different commercial actors.

Who is it?

Host – Landan Jones, MaxBet Media

Host – Michael McKiski, MaxBet Media

Guest – Dr Brett Abarbanel, Director of Research at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas’ International Gaming Institute

What is being said?

Commenting on the scale of the esports sector, and why it is such a lucrative opportunity for betting operators, Dr Abarbanel said: “There’s over 200 million esports fans worldwide, and more generally over three billion people play video games – that’s around half the world, the closest thing would probably be soccer.”

Continuing on the topic of the growth of esports during the COVID-19 pandemic, she remarked: “With esports, because this is done so much digitally and we’re already socially distancing – for example, the three of us here could be playing video games right now and it would be almost the same thing as connecting for zoom calls for a podcast – the ability to do that really helped esports grow in a major way during a pandemic.

“Right now we’re looking at a market that’s estimated to be about $1.6 billion, about 80% of that is advertising and sponsorship, so that’s really where a lot of the money is coming in.”

She added: “It’s international, so you can really pull in viewers from everywhere, and because a lot of this from the get go has been streamed live online on a global scale, media rights has been a really interesting discussion in the piece. 

“If I started with having my event that was accessible to everybody and I streamed on Twitch  which is a huge video game streaming platform – people are used to seeing this from all over the globe.”

Why should I watch it?

To hear an academic with considerable experience of the esports space discuss the rise in popularity of the sector and identify key market opportunities for various commercial organisations.

Where can I see more?

Source – MaxBet Media YouTube Channel