How many people watch esports compared to other sports?

The global esports market is currently worth $2.39 billion. According to industry projections, it will grow at an impressive 20.9 per cent CAGR over the next 8 years and surpass the $10 billion mark by 2032.

Audience-wise, esports tournaments should hit 640.8 million viewers by 2025, 318 million of which will be dedicated fans. This article reviews how these numbers compare to the traditional sports audience. Do people watch more esports now than football? Let’s find out:

How many people watch esports?

There are more esports players and fans today than 10 years ago. This is thanks to gaming communities, governments, tournament organizers, sponsors, and esports betting operators like Betway Ghana, which have taken esports mainstream and exposed it to a wider global audience.

In 2020, esports viewers totalled 435.7 million, not a shabby number for a then-niche sport. By 2022, this number had grown to 532.1 million and will keep growing into 2025 as esports continues to expand and collide with other forms of entertainment.

Which esports events do most fans watch?

League of Legends (LoL) by far. Esports Data shows LoL saw 5 million peak viewers in 2022, excluding China. Riot Games places this number closer to 74 million peak viewers for Worlds for the entire year. In 2023, the League of Legends World Championship had 6.4 million viewers, a new record. This number was only rivaled by the M5 World Championship in Mobile Legends’s 5.06 million peak viewers.

Other standout events in terms of viewership in previous years include:

  •       Free Fire World Series 2021 Singapore – 5.41 million concurrent viewers
  •       2021 League of Legends World Championship – 4.01 million peak viewers
  •       PUBG Mobile Global Championship Season 0 – 3.8 million peak viewers

But these numbers don’t paint the full picture of esports fans. Of the 532.1 million people who watched esports in 2022, 270.9 million were occasional viewers. 261.2 million were dedicated fans. In 2025, the number of people who watch esports religiously will be 318.1 million, which is impressive. But is it enough to win the esports vs. sports debate? Not yet.

How many people watch traditional sports?

It’s still a lot more than esports.

Despite significant strides, sponsorships, and legislation in the esports arena, traditional sports remain the king of entertainment, at least in viewership.

According to the NFL, 115 million people watched the Super Bowl LVII in 2023 on TV. Another 21.81 million people streamed the game online. When the NFL accounted for group viewers, because Americans like to make a day of watching sports, the numbers came up to 208 million.

This is scores of times more than LoL’s largest viewership. It is also one event of one sport in one country. According to FIFA, there are 5 billion football fans worldwide. 550 million people watched the 2022 FIFA World Cup opening game, and 1.5 million tuned in for the finals.

So, viewership-wise, sports are still winning. What does this mean for stakeholders? Not much unless you consider where people are watching these games.

Where do most people watch traditional sports?

Not traditional media, that’s for sure. Digital sports viewership has risen 466 per cent since 2018, while TV and cable viewership is steadily declining by 4.4 per cent yearly. According to eMarketer, live sports viewership will drop below 70 million by 2028 as more viewers move online for their daily sports fix.

There are currently 105.3 million digital live sports viewers in the US. This means that the future of sports, like esports, is online for marketers, online sports betting platforms like Betway, and traditional media operators.

So, are esports more popular than sports?

The esports market was worth less than $3 billion in 2023 to traditional sports’ $512 billion market value. But before you laud the latter as the more popular of the two, viewership trends actually favor esports as the more popular activity—or at least they will be.

Traditional sports viewership is in an all-time decline. As people move from cable and TV to the digital space, they discover new games and events to watch and bet on through digital platforms like Betway. This, experts say, is why esports’ future is brighter than Monday Night Football.

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