The amount of time people around the world "watch competitive video games as a spectator sport continues to rise at a rapid pace," up 19% last year to more than 6 billion hours, a report from analysts at IHS Markit found, according to Tim Bradshaw of the FINANCIAL TIMES. However, the study suggested it will take several years for professional esports to become a sizeable advertising business, given global audience fragmentation. This is pushing the "nascent" esports industry toward a "diversified revenue stream that includes ecommerce and rights sales, in addition to advertising." Esports has seen "significant investment in recent years from games publishers and online retailers," including Activision Blizzard, Tencent, Alibaba and Amazon, the latter paying $1B to acquire video game-streaming site Twitch in '14. The biggest esports tournaments "attract multimillion-dollar prize funds." For esports broadcasters online and on traditional TV, "advertising and sponsorship are the primary drivers of revenues today." Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick said, "One of our big priorities is to unlock the full potential of professional esports by opening the sale of teams and media rights of our leagues." IHS estimated that $280M was spent on esports advertising last year, and forecasts that figure to rise to $1B by '21 (FT, 5/8).
