We all know how popular the Esports industry is. It is only growing bigger and better. It is one of the industries that are growing exponentially and are taking the world by storm. There are more people engaged in this industry than you can imagine. The Esports industry includes multiple games and a huge mass of players playing it. There are multiple tournaments going on currently that you can find on PlayersHive if you wish to participate in one. It is amazing to see how many people are playing and making a lot of money out of it as well. But there are many who are not aware of some of teh facts that are related to this industry.
Youngsters are majorly the audience that Esports has, but these young people are not familiar with the facts pertaining to the industry. We are going to introduce you to some of the facts that are exciting and you didn’t know about. Do you know when the first-ever tournament happened? It was 48 years ago! Yes, gaming is that old. Surprised? I am sure you are.
It is common to think that Esports is a new trend and won’t last for too long, but it isn’t true. The digital gaming world has existed for a long time now. Esports includes many competitive games that involve advanced-level gaming along with prizes in cash. Some of the games that Esports has taken under its umbrella are Call of Duty, FIFA, DOTA2, and many more such games. There are sites that now provide a betting market which is making entering the Esports world easy.
There are many amazing and mind-blowing Esports facts that you didn’t know about until now, here are some of the facts to tickle your imagination.
First Esports Tournament
The first-ever Esports tournament was held back in 1972! Yes, we are equally shocked! Apparently, this is the birth year of Esports when Stanford University organized the Intergalactic Spacewar Olympics which was on a PDP-1 computer for the game Spacewar. The tournament included three separate categories much like today’s tournaments for Esports, singles, team competition, and free for all. The students participated in this tournament but the free for all category saw many outsiders participating. The prize for winning was a Rolling Stone Magazine subscription for a whole year.
Record Prize Pool
We all know that tournaments in Esports come with a huge prize pool. But how much is huge? Can it hold a record? Yes. The International, a tournament held by Valve holds the record for the highest prize pool for an Esports tournament for DOTA2 games. It is estimated that the prize pool for this tournament was US $34.3million. It is to be noted that all this prize money was collected from crowdfunding from fans and players themselves.
The team players who won received $3.1 million each which is apparently even more than what Novak Djokovic won at Wimbledon. Isn’t it mind-blowing?
League of Legends vs Super Bowl
Here is another fun fact about Esports. Did you know that the League of Legends tournament had higher viewership than the Super Bowl of 2019? Yes, it is absolutely true. The finals of the League of Legends tournament had a viewership of more than 100 million. Even in the following year,2020 the NFL Super Bowl had a lesser viewership than that of League of Legends 2019. It was 98.8 million.
Gaming is not just for youngsters
Did you know that there is a group of people above 60 years of age who have a special Professional Counter-Strike team? Yes, they exist. This group is called Silver Snipers. Going against the traditional view that gaming is only for young people. This group has people from the age group 64 to 75 and wish to break away from the typical notions of age, gender, and race.
The people involved in this team are majorly from Sweden. They don’t only play for the sake of playing, they have also won the Seniors World Cup where they had to defeat Germany, Finland, and the USA. These players wish to send out a message that there is no age for gaming and anybody can play games just like them irrespective of age, gender or race.
Hall of Fame for Esports
You read that right. There is an Esports Hall of Fame. It is not as huge as the National Baseball Hall of Fame but it is surely a big deal in the world of Esports. It shows how important Esports has become and how consistently players are playing well and are involved with the games.
The first time somebody was selected for the Hall of Fame was in 2016. One was for Counter-Strike and the other for Quake. After that four players were selected with other categories for ‘community’ work and ‘Special Awards’. Apart from that in 2019, three people were selected for the Esports Insider Hall of Fame where people who have made a certain impact in the Esports world and who are not gamers are awarded.
Final Word
These were some of the interesting facts about the Esports industry that you didn’t know about until now. This industry is full of fun facts that not many people know about which is why it makes it even more alluring to find out more such cool facts.
