According to research by IHS Technology, roughly 2.4 billion hours were spent watching eSports worldwide in 2013. This data follows a report by SuperData which stated that more people watched League of Legends games than Major League Baseball and the NBA in 2013.
This figure is expected to grow to just under 7 billion hours by 2018, with China the largest market for online eSport views in the world, followed by the U.S. and South Korea. League of Legends was the most popular eSport in terms of hours viewed in 2013, followed by Dota 2 and Starcraft II.
“While advertising in and around games has often proved to be a difficult proposition, advertising in online video is commonplace,” said Piers Harding-Rolls, director at IHS. “This form of advertising gives games companies a much better opportunity of accessing the advertising value chain in a successful and meaningful way and offers these companies a route to profitable return on investment from their eSport initiatives.”
Twitch, Azubu, MLG, YouTube, Daily Motion, and Tencent are the main service providers for eSport streaming.
IHS Technology – eSport
Source: IHS Technology
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