eSports Is Already Mainstream In China - Big Tournaments get 240m Daily Views (2x Superbowl numbers)

July 25, 2018 Omer Altay Comments

While eSports is growing incredibly quickly in the West, it's still a niche market. That's not the case in China though. According to Bloomberg, premier tournaments like the King Pro League get as many as 240 million daily views, which is 2x the audience of last year's Super Bowl. The King Pro League is the biggest tournament of the year for the mobile MOBA Honor of Kings (Arena of Valor in the West) and it's currently the most successful game in China (and with $400m in monthly revenue, also the world).

In the image below 18,000 fans are watching 10 players duke it out in Honor of Kings:

Source: Bloomberg / ImagineChina

Besides simply drawing in big crowds and impressive viewership numbers, eSports is expected to grow into a $3 billion a year industry by 2022 according to data from Goldman Sachs: