Kenyans are winning big through Pro Series Gaming (PSG) with some banking up to Ksh500,000 in eSports tournaments organised by the gaming community.
We live in a wildly capitalistic society, where if you have a goose that lays golden eggs, it’s best to keep it alive. It is therefore not surprising that the investment into the eSports industry has grown rather quickly, especially in hotbeds like the US and China.
The money circulating in the gaming industry comes in many forms, some more ubiquitous than others. We have sponsorships, salaries, partnerships, prize pools, Digital Streaming, Merchandising and Media Rights. So, let’s talk money, shall we?
The most obvious cash cow in the eSports industry is the Cash Prize for various tournaments. These can have winnings of up to $200,000 (Ksh. 21,268,000). Some high-level competitions, like Dota 2 International, earns $10 million (Ksh1,063,400,000) to the competition's winning team.
Last year, the Watchmen team made away with Ksh500,000 after winning the PSG Elite COD tournament. The cash prize usually scales upwards with the size of the tournament, that is, the bigger the tournament the bigger the cash prize associated with it.
Let us not forget that eSports athletes are employees of the field, and as such, they also get paid a salary. For instance, we have team members earning Salaries up to $15,000 (Ksh. 1,595,100) for a single competition with the average eSport athlete’s salary in the US being around $3,000 - $5,000 (Ksh319,020-Ksh. 531,700) per month. Some teams offer their players bonuses, health insurance and retirement plans.
Beyond that, Teams and eSports events have sponsors that bankroll them. You will usually see gaming related brands like Asus’s Republic of Gamers (RoG), Dell’s Alienware, Lenovo’s Legion, MSI as well as other non-gaming affiliated brands like Coca-Cola, Redbull, Monster Energy, Safaricom, LiquidTelcom and others.
Some of that money goes into competition and cash prizes, and some go directly to team ownership. As of 2019, sponsors comprised $456 million (Ksh48,491,040,000) of the overall $1.1 billion (Ksh116,974,000,000) in eSports revenues.
Digital Streaming and eSports go hand in hand. As such, the major events are normally streamed on platforms like YouTube, Facebook Gaming, Twitch and others. Individual eSport athletes can have their own streams as well.
On Twitch, for instance, the payoff is $4.99 (Ksh530) per month per viewer. The money in digital streams comes from the viewership numbers. The higher the viewership, the higher the payoff.
Media rights encompass one-fifth of revenues earned by eSports companies and players. Mostly, media rights money is paid out to event organisers and game developers, who pass on some of the cash to teams and players in the form of prize money and bonuses. In 2019, media rights comprised $251 million (Ksh. 26,691,340,000) of the $1.1 billion (Ksh. 116,974,000,000) total eSports revenue.
Merchandising is another way the eSports industry makes its money. Brands will have an assortment of merchandise from hoodies, t-shirts, and baseball caps to limited-edition GPU’s and consoles.
Head to the Pro-Series Gaming website psg.co.ke to find out more about how you can get one of their sick hoodies. The tournaments themselves also make money through ticket sales and admission fees.
It is evident that there is a lot of money circulating in the industry, and a lot more to come as the sport grows larger. If you care to get your hand on some of that money, why not try your hand at a career in eSports as an athlete, organiser, content creator and other ventures?