Tiger Woods, Roger Federer, Virat Kohli, and Lionel Messi are well-known athletes. These individuals represent traditional sports. Sports have, however, gone online with technology development and the mobile revolution, just like everything else.
Online gaming has also become a spectator sport thanks to “esports.”
Describe esports. In essence, an esport is “a video game performed as a competition for others to watch as entertainment,” according to the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. They mimic the experience of watching a professional athletic event, except that viewers watch video gamers or e-athletes compete against one another rather than a real event. According to a 2019 Forbes article, esports are becoming more popular while conventional sports are losing followers. In 2022,there were 532 million esports viewers world wide.
It is hardly surprising that the esports sector is expanding in India. Among the most popular esports in India are BGMI, PUBG, Call of Duty, Tekken 7, DOTA 2, and FIFA. On December 27, 2022, the Indian government recognised esports as a component of a “multisport” event by integrating them with conventional sports disciplines. As a result, the Ministry of Sports and Youth Affairs is now responsible for esports in India. One of the world’s marketplaces for esports that is expanding the quickest is India.
By 2025, esports will produce more than Rs 100 billion in overall economic impact through investments, direct industry revenues, in-app sales, and other revenues, according to a research by EY, and more than 11,000 direct and indirect employment.
The Indian DOTA 2 team most recently took home the bronze medal in the Commonwealth Esports Championship. Each year, a number of these international esports competitions are held in which India takes part. For instance, esports will be featured at the 2018 Asian Games as a recognised medal event. The number of esports players quadrupled from 3,00,000 in 2020 to 6,00,000 in 2021, and esports income increased by 29% from Rs 7.5 billion in 2020 to Rs 9.7 billion in 2021, according to the FICCI-EY Media and Entertainment Report 2022.
In traditional sports, it’s common to see athletes develop into brands unto themselves, generating substantial sums of money. The esports scene is the same. It is only natural for e-athletes to gain popularity and money because India’s esports market is thriving much like the country’s traditional sports market.
In traditional sports, players frequently have managers to assist with complex commercial choices and legal manoeuvres. In the past, the majority of professional esports athletes would self-represent in the start of their careers, leaving them very vulnerable to abuse. To compete in leagues and tournaments, professional esports players/athletes (player and e-athlete shall be used interchangeably) in India increasingly prefer to have written agreements with Indian esports organisations.
Initially, because earnings from tournaments were the sole source of income for esports players, they were primarily protected by contract law. Esports player contracts sometimes resemble employment contracts since organisations now have greater influence over players’ behaviour, actions, and even brand management.
