The real deal: 7 eSports facts that bust the "fair play" myth

Recently, the e-sports market has been booming and gaining more and more popularity. Nowadays, betting on e-sports competitions is accepted not only by bookmakers, but also by the online casino looking to attract new customers and retain an audience of regular users.

Many conservatives still believe that StarCraft, Dota 2, League Of Legends, CS:GO, WoW or Minecraft are just games. In reality, this is not the case. E-sports are a new type of professional sport that offers participants many international championships with huge prizes and multi-million dollar contracts. There are at least seven factors that show that programming is not just a game.

High-level international tournaments in the biggest stadiums

Major cyber championships attract tens of thousands of fans to stadiums. Competitions are held in large venues such as:

• Commerzbank Arena;
• Mercedes-Benz Arena;
• O2 Arena.

In addition, millions of people around the world watch the competition live.

Huge prize pools

Global cyber tournaments offer huge prize pools of hundreds of thousands and even several million dollars. For example, for the Dota 2 world championship, a prize pool of eighteen million dollars was set aside. To date, the programming has made eleven people millionaires. In no other classic sport do the winners receive so much money.

Preparing for games like in professional sports

E-sports players spend a lot of time preparing for the championship. Daily training lasts up to eight hours and up to four hours are spent on a normal game. Preparation for tournaments can take place at a special base or remotely. Like any other athlete, pro-gamers practice team game strategies, receive psychological training and engage in team building activities. The best e-sports players spend at least twelve hours a day training before important matches.

Team and fans, just like in professional sports

A professional eSports team functions in the same way as a team of football, basketball and other sports players. Their work is supervised by:

• journalists and photographers;
• video makers;
• sports directors.

In addition, each team has its own audience of fans. Up to fifty million people support the most popular clubs. It should be noted that no sports team can boast such a large army of fans.

Betting, transfers and doping

The number of bettors participating in e-sports is growing every year. Since 2014, these competitions rank eighth in the ranking of the most popular disciplines, according to bookmakers.

The transfer is also present in this sport. Today, a player pays up to fifteen thousand dollars. The most expensive transfer in e-sports is five hundred thousand dollars. The same amount was paid to the player as salary for two years.

E-sports have not been free of doping scandals. After athletes were found to have taken stimulants at the One Katowice tournament in 2015, the ESL decided to make doping controls mandatory.

Recording world records

The Guinness Book of Records records the records of pro-gamers. The record holder was Mystik, who was recognised as the most successful e-sports player. She competes in the Halo discipline and has received over one hundred and twenty-two thousand dollars during her work. SumaiL also became a record holder. The sixteen-year-old gamer is recognised as the youngest e-sports millionaire. Competing in DAC and TI5, he received more than 1.6 million dollars.

Publicity and sponsors

The most important fact that progaming is not just a game, but a great sport, is sponsorship. Manufacturers of computer equipment, gaming devices and gadgets provide enormous support to e-sports athletes. For example, the sponsor of the European eSports League is Logitech G. During the championships, it provides the players with all the necessary professional equipment.

The fact that eSports have a great future is also demonstrated by the fact that an increasing number of large international companies are investing in eSports. Moreover, it is not only those companies that are interested in the development of programming and make money from its popularity. The championships are sponsored by Nissan, Coca-Cola and other well-known brands. This is a great opportunity to advertise in front of a large audience of people.

So, those who think that eSports is just a game are very wrong, and this is all due to lack of knowledge. We hope that our article has convinced you that eSports is a professional sports discipline that has a great future.