What Are The Biggest Esports Leagues?
Esports are becoming more and more popular, with huge leagues forming all over the world. But which are the biggest and most popular?
The Esports Industry
The esports industry is one of the fastest growing industries in the world. Esports leagues are a big part of this industry and there are many different leagues to choose from. Some of the most popular esports leagues include the Overwatch League, the League of Legends Championship Series, and the Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Major Championships.
What is esports?
Esports, also known as electronic sports, is a form of competition using video games. Esports often takes the form of organized, multiplayer video game competitions, particularly between professional players. The most common video games played in esports are real-time strategy games, first-person shooter games, and multiplayer online battle arena games.
Organized esports competitions have been around since the 1970s, but the professionalization of esports only began in the 1990s. Since then, the esports industry has grown rapidly, with professional leagues and tournaments being held all over the world. The global esports market was worth an estimated $696 million in 2017, and is expected to grow to $1.5 billion by 2020.
The biggest esports leagues include the League of Legends World Championship, the Overwatch League, and the Dota 2 The International. These leagues bring in millions of dollars in prize money each year, and attract hundreds of thousands of spectators.
The history of esports
The history of esports is often traced back to 1972, when students at Stanford University held the first intercollegiate video game tournament. However, the roots of competitive gaming can be traced back even further, to the early days of arcade gaming in the 1970s and 1980s.
With the advent of personal computers and home consoles in the 1980s and 1990s, esports began to gain popularity in countries like South Korea and Japan. These countries had strong arcade cultures, and many young people started playing video games in public spaces. These players became good enough to compete in tournaments, which began to spring up in the early 1990s.
The first major international esports tournament was held in 1997, called The Red Annihilation Competition. This Quake tournament drew over 2,000 participants from around the world, and it was won by a 17-year-old named Dennis Fong. Fong would go on to become one of the first professional gamers, and he remains an icon in the esports community today.
Since then, esports has grown exponentially. The industry is now worth billions of dollars, and there are professional leagues for almost every popular video game title. The biggest esports leagues boast prize pools of tens of millions of dollars, drawing millions of viewers from around the world.
The rise of esports
The term “esports” covers a wide range of video game competitions, from small local tournaments to massive international events. The global esports market is expected to grow from $696 million in 2017 to $1.5 billion by 2020, according to a report by Newzoo.
There are several big esports leagues, each with its own games, rules and prize pools. The three biggest leagues are the League of Legends Championship Series (LCS), the Overwatch League (OWL) and the Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) Major Championships.
The LCS is the premier league for League of Legends, one of the most popular esports games in the world. The league is run by Riot Games, the game’s developer, and features 10 teams from North America and 10 teams from Europe. The OWL is the professional league for Overwatch, a team-based first-person shooter game developed by Blizzard Entertainment. The league currently has 12 teams, all based in the United States. The CS:GO Major Championships is a series of tournaments run by Valve Corporation, the developer of CS:GO. The tournaments feature 16 of the best CS:GO teams in the world and have a prize pool of $1 million.
The Biggest Esports Leagues
The top esports leagues in the world bring in massive amounts of revenue and have passionate fanbases. The leagues are constantly expanding and evolving, with new games and tournaments being added all the time. Here are the biggest esports leagues in the world.
The League of Legends Championship Series (LCS)
The LCS is the top level of professional League of Legends in the United States and Canada. The LCS is a competition between ten teams in two separate seven-week regular seasons, with each team playing every other team twice. At the end of each regular season, the top six teams advance to a four-week playoff tournament, with the first- and second-seeded teams receiving a bye into the semifinals.
The Overwatch League (OWL)
The Overwatch League (OWL) is the professional esports league for the video game Overwatch, produced by its developer Blizzard Entertainment. The Overwatch League follows the model of traditional North American professional sports, using a set of permanent, city-based teams and regular season play, rather than the use of promotion and relegation used commonly in other esports leagues.
The league was announced in November 2016 with its inaugural season beginning a year later. As of June 2018, there are 12 teams in the League, with plans to expand to 20 by 2020. playing matches 4 times a week at Blizzard Arena Los Angeles. The season is divided into two stages, each six weeks long; at the end of each stage, there are playoff tournaments involving the top teams from each division within each stage’s regular season. Tournament winners receive bonuses toward their overall prize pool. From the inaugural season onwards, all matches are played live at one of Blizzard’s dedicated eSports venues: The Blizzard Arena Los Angeles (formerly Launder Esports Stadium).
The Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Major Championships (CS:GO Majors)
The Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Major Championships, commonly known as CS:GO Majors, are tournaments with a prize pool of $1,000,000 (previously $250,000) sponsored by Valve. They are only held once per year. The first Major was hosted by Dreamhack in 2013 at Dreamhack Summer in Jönköping, Sweden. Previous CS:GO Majors have been hosted in Columbus (2016), Atlanta (2017), Boston (2018), London (2018), and Berlin (2019). The next CS:GO Major is scheduled for November 2019 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
The CS:GO Majors use a Swiss system format. In the Swiss system, players are not eliminated after a loss; instead, they are paired up against other players with similar win-loss records. This continues until the player has either won three games or lost three games; at that point, the player is either eliminated or seeded into the single-elimination bracket.
The Dota 2 International (Dota 2)
Dota 2 is a free-to-play multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) video game developed and published by Valve Corporation. The game is a sequel to Defense of the Ancients (DotA), which was a community-created mod for Blizzard Entertainment’s Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos and its expansion pack, The Frozen Throne. Dota 2 is played in matches between two teams that consist of five players, with both teams occupying their own separate base on the map. Each of the ten players independently controls a powerful character, known as a “hero”, who all have unique abilities and differing styles of play. During a match, players collect experience points and items for their heroes to successfully battle the opposing team’s heroes in player versus player combat. A team wins by being first to either destroy the other team’s “Ancient”, an important structure located within each base, or forcing the other team to surrender.
Dota 2 has a large esports scene, with teams from around the world playing in various professional leagues and tournaments. One of the most prestigious Dota 2 tournaments is The International, which is organized by Valve Corporation themselves. The International features a prize pool that has grown explosively over the years, with crowdfunding through Compendiums and Battle Passes contributing over $34 million in 2019 alone. This made it the largest prize pool for any single esports tournament at the time; however, it has since been surpassed by Fortnite World Cup Finals in 2019. There are numerous other Dota 2 tournaments with smaller prize pools that are hosted throughout the year.
The Future of Esports
The esports industry is expected to be worth $1.1 billion by the end of 2019, and it’s only getting bigger. With the rise of Twitch, YouTube Gaming, and other live-streaming platforms, more and more people are getting into esports. But what are the biggest esports leagues? In this article, we’ll take a look at the five biggest esports leagues in the world.
The growth of esports
Today, esports is a multi-billion dollar industry with a global following. But it wasn’t always this way. Just a few decades ago, esports was a niche hobby for gamers and computer nerds. So how did esports grow into the juggernaut it is today?
There are a few reasons for esports’ explosive growth. First, there’s been a boom in internet and technology infrastructure around the world. This has made it easier for gamers to connect and compete with each other online. Second, there’s been a growth in the popularity of gaming as a pastime. And lastly, there’s been an increase in investment in esports, both from sponsorships and prize money.
As esports has grown, so too have the leagues and tournaments that professional gamers compete in. There are now dozens of major esports leagues around the world, each with its own following of millions of fans. The three biggest leagues are the League of Legends Championship Series (LCS), the Overwatch League (OWL), and the Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Major Championship (CS:GO).
The LCS is by far the biggest and most popular league, with 10 million viewers tuning in to watch the most recent championship finals. The OWL comes in second, with 4 million viewers for its most recent season finals. And CS:GO rounds out the top three with 2 million viewers for its most recent major tournament.
What’s even more impressive is that these viewing figures are only going to grow in the years to come. Esports is still in its infancy as an industry, but its already seeing tremendous success. As it continues to grow and attract more fans, we can only imagine how big it will become.
The future of the biggest esports leagues
As the popularity of esports continues to rise, so too does the number of leagues and tournaments being held all over the world. While some of these are smaller, regional affairs, others have grown to become global, multi-million dollar businesses. In this article, we’ll take a look at some of the biggest and most influential esports leagues in the world today, and try to predict what the future might hold for them.
The League of Legends Championship Series (LCS) is one of the biggest and most popular esports leagues in the world. It is run by developer Riot Games and features teams from all over North America and Europe competing against each other in a bid to be crowned champions. The league has been running since 2013, and its popularity has only grown in that time. In 2017, the LCS had an average viewership of nearly 500,000 people per week, with a peak of over 1 million during the finals.
The future looks bright for the LCS, with Riot Games committing to increasing its investment in the league. This is sure to attract more top teams and players, as well as attracting even more viewers. The league is also expanding into new markets such as South Korea and China, which can only mean good things for its long-term prospects.
Another big league is the Overwatch League (OWL). This is run by developer Blizzard Entertainment and features teams from all over the world competing in Blizzard’s first-person shooter Overwatch. The inaugural season of the OWL was held in 2018 and was a huge success, with average viewership figures similar to those of the LCS. Blizzard has plans to expand the league even further in 2019, with more teams and more countries represented. The future looks very bright for the OWL too.
While these are arguably the two biggest leagues in esports at present, there are many others that are also worth keeping an eye on. The counter-strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) Major Championships are run by developer Valve Corporation and attract large audiences from all over the world (the 2018 edition had a total prize pool of $1 million). Another big tournament series is ESL One, which features tournaments for a variety of different games including CS:GO, Dota 2 and League of Legends. ESL One also has a large global audience and boasts some huge prize pools (the 2018 edition featured a $1 million prize pool for CS:GO).
It’s safe to say that esports is here to stay, and that competitive gaming is only going to grow in popularity in the years to come. With that being said, it’s impossible to predict exactly what might happen next in this rapidly growing industry. However, one thing is for sure – if you’re interested in competitive gaming, make sure to keep an eye on these big leagues!
