At the height of the pandemic, people tried everything to stay entertained from the comfort of their homes, one of those activities being Esports. Esports didn’t start during the pandemic, but it certainly reached new heights. According to DemandSage, Esport Viewership reached over 500 billion views worldwide.
Many look down on Esports, alluding to it not being a “real sport” where you have to physically exercise your body. However, eSports do have a lot of cognitive benefits, such as enhancing strategic thinking and problem-solving, as well as teamwork and adding some sort of social interaction while being locked up at home.
The Esports phenomenon began in the 1970s when home consoles first became popular. The first Esports tournament took place on October 19th, 1972 at Stanford University’s Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. The players competed in the game “Spacewar!”, a space combat video game, for a year’s subscription to Rolling Stone magazine.
Esports tournaments have various categories and formats. Categories include First-person shooter games such as Apex Legends and Call of Duty, multiplayer online battle arena games such as League of Legends and Dota 2, fighter games like Mortal Kombat and Super Smash Bros, sports games such as Madden and NBA2K, and other games. Match formats include best-of-one up to best-of-five.
But where did Esports go? It seems like there has been relatively little news on the advancement of the sport in the U.S. Well, they’re still alive and well; you just have to look to other countries.
In 2024, there were several major Esports tournaments including the Tekken World Tour Finals earlier this month in Japan and the PUBG Global Championship in Malaysia. While there have been tournaments in the U.S. this year, such as Valorant 2024: Americas League – Stage 1, it seems like the U.S. is behind on Esports advancements compared to other countries.
The lack of Esports advancements in the U.S. could be due to cultural differences, market size, support from major companies, and even infrastructure/venues.
In countries such as South Korea or China, Esports have been integrated into their culture for a long time. The best Esports players are treated as celebrities in these countries, such as Jang “Moon” Jae-Ho from South Korea, the greatest Warcraft 3 player of all time who is estimated to have earned over $550,000. The U.S. tends to favor traditional sports such as Basketball and Football, which would explain the lack of eSport tournaments in the country.
In countries like China and South Korea, Esports games receive a lot of funding, both from private companies and the government itself. The government in South Korea invested in building several esports-specific facilities, such as the Busan Esports Arena.
The U.S. is a large country with about 335 million people, while countries like South Korea have around 51 million. In a country as large as the U.S., with its widely diverse tastes, it’s hard to rally a large concentrated number of Esports viewership and participation, especially taking into account the cultural differences mentioned earlier.
As Esports continues to grow in popularity worldwide, it is possible the U.S. will jump on that train and endorse more Esports tournaments and infrastructures, but it is predicted that the U.S. will continuously favor traditional sports over Esports.
