Based on its analytics, data firm Newzoo has made some bold predictions for esports in the next few years. In the report, Newzoo’s business predictions support a $1.7 billion esports market by 2021. Likewise, the data analytics firm also addressed predictions it made about the esports industry three years ago.
Many of the predictions posted in 2017 were met, according to Newzoo. These include the notion that esports revenues would make $465 million by 2017—the actual number landed at $655 million. Newzoo also expected esports revenue to surpass WWE’s revenues, and that happened, too.
Newzoo now says that this trend will continue into 2021, with esports growing the video games market into a bigger industry than the professional sports sphere.
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“We expect that the global games market will will generate revenues of $180.1 billion by 2021, and esports will be a major driver of this, with many brands investing in esports to appeal to younger demographics,” Newzoo reported. “As more companies get involved and consumers spend more time watching esports content outside of the competitions themselves, esports will generate much growth within the global games industry.”
Newzoo isn’t suggesting that esports itself will propel its market past the traditional sports industry, but that it’ll support the video game industry in making that push.
Interestingly, Newzoo also suggests that the term “esports” will start to fade away. As esports become more mainstream, fans and onlookers will simply start to use the names of games, like League of Legends or Overwatch, to describe what they watch. So it’ll be a Dota 2 tournament on next weekend, not an esports tournament.
“While the term will never fully die out, we expect that it will be used a lot less by 2021,” Newzoo said.
As the years go on, we’ll see if Newzoo’s predictions are met. Meet us back here in three years to see what Newzoo has to say.
