ATLANTA, GA – JANUARY 29: A general view of play during the ELEAGUE: Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Major Championship finals at Fox Theater on January 29, 2017 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images)
Esports has become such big business that mobile platform Skillz is the country’s No. 1 private company for growth by one recent estimate and the Paris 2024 Olympics organizers are considering its inclusion as a medal event. Those are just a pair of sample headlines from this month, so it’s little wonder that Nielsen, the industry leader in media and audience insights, recently announced its own foray into the field with Nielsen Esports.
Nielsen’s Esport24 sponsorship tracking service estimated one recent tournament sponsorship to have been worth as much as $17 million in value, while additional company research summarizes the industry’s staggering growth with this stat: almost one third of all esports fans are new within the last year.
Furthermore, the company has reported, esports’ average consumer is in the coveted demographic of males aged 18 to 34. As of the end of 2016, Nielsen estimated that, in just one year, the identified fan base of esports grew from 8 percent of Americans 13 years and older to 14 with 77 percent of fans being male and 61 percent in the millennial generation.
“Nielsen knows sports, Nielsen knows games, and we obviously know audience,” Nicole Pike, Nielsen Games vice president and co-leader of the new esports division, told Bloomberg News. “To us that’s the perfect confluence of expertise to enter esports.”
Nielsen, which already had a gaming division, says it will offer sponsorship valuation, fan insights, industry research and consulting services to rights holders, media platforms and brands. Joining the company’s new esports advisory board are some bold-faced corporations from the media, sports and gaming industries, including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, FIFA, ESPN, Sony Playstation, the NBA 2K League and even Unilever.
Also on the board is gaming giant ESL, whose CEO of North America business, Craig Levine, said in a statement: “The global, digital and young nature of esports fan base audience represents advertising’s most highly sought after segment, yet consistent and high quality data has been a challenge to measure and define.”
One example Nielsen gave for its valuations is that Audi received more than tenfold return on investment for its sponsorship of Astralis’ Counter-Strike: Global Offensive team during events earlier this year; the broadcast and streaming coverage of the live event was the primary driver of value but almost 40 percent of the value was derived from social and digital exposure.
Competing market research firm Newzoo has projected esports revenue growth of 41.3 percent in 2017 up to $696 million with $155 million of that total spent on advertising, $266 million on sponsorship, and a $95 million on media rights.
