Over the past few years, we’ve become accustomed to seeing surprising headlines about the world of eSports. Multi-million dollar signings, competitions with hundreds of thousands or even millions of views, professional players with a status similar to rock stars… Everything at this time indicated that electronic sports were already in a position to start eating the toast of the traditional ones. During these years, the sector experienced times of wine and roses.

However, this year 2022 does not turn out to be particularly positive for eSports or, more precisely, for the economy associated with it. After a period that can be narrowed down mainly to the last five years, during which investors fell to their knees in the face of the dazzling expectations that loomed, a cocktail of circumstances created the perfect storm that does not threaten the continuity of eSports, but rather to keep its future as vibrant as his last years.

We’ll see the main reasons why the prospects for eSports investment are very, very low in the near future. The order in which I list them does not mean that this is their order of importance. In fact, it’s an assessment that anyone can make, and one that is likely to produce different results depending on each person’s worldview.

Let’s start with investors After several years of pouring money into eSports at a frantic pace and waiting for a return on investment to catch up, they see the years go by, but it doesn’t come. The operating costs of eSports teams and competitions are formidable, but have not yet achieved the expected return on the funds that fund their operations. In the course of 2022, we have already seen how to do it the volume of investment decreasedinfluencing the running of teams, companies and competitions.

The reason is clear, eSports support is massive, but this does not translate into monetization at height. Many have expected that eSports clubs can monetize in many ways that traditional sports teams and competitions do, but despite several attempts in this regard, ticket sales, merchandising and other impacts are much, much lower than desired. sector.

Also advertisers and sponsors They are starting to show some wear. It is true that they are actually the least affected as the popularity of eSports continues to skyrocket (although we will now talk about this point as well), but the high costs at a time when the shadow of the economic recession is beginning to take away sleep from many people is something that many companies , if not all, is not willing to face.

And that, of course, is another important point. Word recession it already features in the vast majority of conversations about the economy and budgets. From investors to advertisers, including organizations of all kinds, they are worried about the difficult economic scenario for the coming year, and investing in eSports is nowhere near profitable or safe enough to be considered a good option these days.

Viewership: it is true that it continues to be very high, but it is also true that it is in decline for a while now, which platforms like Twitch are also taking a lot of notice of. The pandemic with restrictions has created an audience for this type of content and platforms, but since last year, and especially since 2022, the trend is contractionary, which also affects eSports very significantly.

Unfortunately, so is the industry that financially supported eSports they were cryptoactive substances, mainly cryptocurrencies and NFTs. I do not think it is necessary to elaborate on the situation of this sector during 2022 and especially since the crashes of Terra and FTX, which have added to the crypto winter and at the last minute also in the shadow of the regulators on Binance for its possible participation as a platform in money laundering operations.

Of course, all this does not mean that eSports will disappear, far from it. Rather, what we’re facing seems to be a retuning after several years of investment and record-breaking viewership every month, likely bloated by unfulfilled expectations. Now, of course, we find the key in the sector’s ability to adapt to these new rules in a recession. Those who can manage the situation in the most appropriate way will be able to face the future period of growth in the best conditions. However, all who fail to adapt to this new reality may never reach the light at the end of the tunnel.

With information from Yahoo! Finance