A week of news covering the intersection of business and gaming / esports, all in about one minute – everything you need to know from the “profit of esports” himself.
030 – January 3, 2021
In this week’s business of esports minute, LCK Dominance, WWE Esports, and PlayStation Movies.
From the keyboard to the boardroom, this is the Business of Esports Minute! Every single week, I, Paul Dawalibi, the prophet of esports, will be bringing you my hottest takes from the week, basically everything you need to know about the business of esports all in about one minute. Let’s go.
This week, we learned that the LCK led all esports leagues in 2020 with over 136M hours watched. In fact, of the 5 most watched esports tournaments in 2020, the top 4 were League of Legends. With Korea occupying spots 2 and 3, it’s no surprise that the region had the most popular esports league in the world in terms of hours watched. These numbers don’t include Chinese platforms, which is a good thing, as Chinese data can be highly questionable. Riot is dominating esports right now. Owners of Activision Blizzard esports teams should be very worried when they aren’t even part of this conversation.
WWE made gaming news this week when they announced their gaming series with Ronda Rousey, Wale, and a list of other superstars and celebrities. The games being played during the series are Among Us and WWE 2K Battlegrounds – both great choices given the players involved here. WWE investing more time and effort into gaming is quite possibly some of my favorite news from 2020. Esports has sometimes struggled with entertainment value, and WWE is king when it comes to creating characters that people cheer or jeer. Let’s hope some of WWE’s storytelling and character creation prowess rubs off on the esports world.
Finally, Sony announced that they have 7 TV shows and 3 movies in development based on PlayStation games. The Chairman of Sony Pictures made the announcement while talking about Sony’s idea to have more integration between their entertainment properties. I suspect Sony Pictures was lacking IP for a new slate of shows and movies and turned to their colleagues at PlayStation. Using PlayStation IP also has the added benefit of a guaranteed audience, as fans of the games will seek out this content. The initiative still seems half-baked though, as no announcement was made regarding which gaming properties will actually be brought to the screen.
For far more detailed insight and discussion into the business of esports, as well as the most exceptional line-up of guests, please tune in every week to the Business of Esports podcast and every Wednesday evening into the Business of Esports after-show livestream. Also make sure to follow us on Twitter @bizesports and on YouTube at The Business of Esports.
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