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As someone has followed the industry for quite some time, I would say that the hype isn't really dying down, but rather that teams are finally having to address

As someone has followed the industry for quite some time, I would say that the hype isn't really dying down, but rather that teams are finally having to address the elephant in the room: Pro player compensation is completely out of whack with regards to where franchising revenue/merch sales are. Salaries need to come down maybe 50% in the West for the numbers to make sense.

PaulHoule 4y ago
The flip side is that compensation is not terribly attractive to the players. I’ve heard that players are dropping out at young ages not because they can’t play anymore but because it is not a good living. I had a LoL habit for a while. I was definitely a fan of Yiliang Peng but spent a lot more time playing LoL than I did watching the pros. I don’t think I generated much if any revenue for his team. There is not a big money train like there is for the NFL.
- loganriebel 4y ago
  The reality is that top players can make more from streaming/content than playing. To take your Doublelift example he has been full time streaming for 2 years but is coming back to LCS this year. He's taking a massive paycut by playing LCS vs. full time streaming/content. These inflated pro salaries are good for the lower tier players who don't have the entertainer personality
- bitwize 4y ago
  - ketzo 4y ago
    No need for the weird shot at women. Streaming makes more money than esports, period.
    - spinach 4y ago
      Is it simply a shot at women? As the only way women can make money that way is if there is an audience of men willing to watch and spend money on them.
    - runnerup 4y ago
      Indeed. The top woman streaming on twitch ranks #64 and the second most popular woman does not break the top 100.
  - IntelMiner 4y ago
    misogyny isn't cool
- tashoecraft 4y ago
  I only follow pubg esports, but I'm just not seeing how a pro player in an expensive country can afford to make a living. The competition is brutal, the hours to be at the top are very high, and unless you're a top streamer the income is very low. Now this can all be hand waved away with "they're just playing a video game, they're lucky" but I think that misses the point. To be a pro at one game, you have to dedicate everything to that game. Revenue sharing has to go up for longevity of esports.
  - wingerlang 4y ago
    Isn't the very definition of 'pro' that they get paid to do it? Prize money, sure, but also sponsors.
    - michaelt 4y ago
      You can get paid without getting paid well. Take [1] as a random example - 18th in the pubg global championship, and they've made $53k split between 3 players in 2022. How many hours of practice do you think they have to put in, to be 18th in the global championship and earn $17.7k per person? [1] https://liquipedia.net/pubg/BBL_Esports https://liquipedia.net/pubg/BBL_Esports
      - wingerlang 4y ago
        Aren't they getting a salary for those hours of practice? That's what I mean with pro, as in professional, as in having gaming as their profession. Honestly, $17.7k for _18th_ place, in PUBG of all games, seems very high to me as a prize. But I am sure they split a lot of that with their organization, coaches and whatever they have, and taxes on top of that. Even so, people work for minimum wage so it all just, depends.
        tashoecraft 4y ago
        A lot of the teams aren't organizations, and the ones who are can sometimes get pretty low salaries, from what I understand. With how much movement there is in the leaderboard year to year, the team who came in first in 2020 placed last in 2021. For how many hours of time played, it's well below minimum wage. And of course it is different, playing a game has plenty of benefits, I'm just thinking about longevity of esports as a whole.
Ekaros 4y ago
And on other side popular players can possibly make same money as streamers or influencers with less risk and effort.
- deelowe 4y ago
  To me, this is what's changing and it's not just changing esports.
  - makestuff 4y ago
    Yeah you see it in the NBA/NFL with a lot of players building their personal brand via Youtube/TikTok/Podcast/etc. It will be interesting to see how this plays out over the next decade. Will businesses keep dumping money into influencer advertising, or will it die down and go back to just the mega stars getting deals. I know right now even people with 10-20k followers on a platform can still get brand deals because it is a new form of targeting. I think the hard thing to solve for is how do you measure the ROI besides use code "XYZ" for 20% off your first month or whatever.
- beckingz 4y ago
  So the classic sports model? Step 1. Be good at a sport and become famous Step 2. Convert Fame into money by endorsing products.
  - Godel_unicode 4y ago
    In most sports leagues the vast majority of player income is salary from their team. There is something approaching a power law around endorsement money, even in the NBA it’s really only the top 10 earners who make more than 20-30% on their non-basketball revenue streams.
  - HDThoreaun 4y ago
    This is true for soccer, but almost all American athletes make the vast majority of their income off team salary.
  - 4y ago
Godel_unicode 4y ago
That’s essentially the thesis of the article, yes. Hype here refers not to the players or the fans but rather to the business side. Investors are looking for returns and not finding them.
rwnspace 4y ago
I believe Faker was the first million dollar salary in eSports on 2017, IIRC LoL moved to a franchising system for it's leagues, which brought in a ton of 'naive' capital, the combination caused a gigantic inflation in NA player salaries and a significant one in EU. This was recognised as a bubble by veterans in the industry and talked about on various talkshows at the time. I completely agree with your point about salaries and really just want to add that this has been expected for years. ESports is still growing, it's just the rate will seem more sane to those in the know.
Macha 4y ago
The flip side is that the earning potential of the top players are incredibly lopsided, whether that be the top competing players in terms of winnings, or those most able to be a personality in terms of streaming. It's not clear the teams themselves contribute much to either of those areas - training is most often self directed or with play groups that may not align with teams, and it's not like e.g. soccer where there's big physical infrastructure like stadiums that clearly the players need an organisation to provide. Instead the venues for in-person events are provided by the tournaments, not the teams, and pretty much everything else the players need to earn money is online.

PaulHoule 4y ago

The flip side is that compensation is not terribly attractive to the players. I’ve heard that players are dropping out at young ages not because they can’t play anymore but because it is not a good living. I had a LoL habit for a while. I was definitely a fan of Yiliang Peng but spent a lot more time playing LoL than I did watching the pros. I don’t think I generated much if any revenue for his team. There is not a big money train like there is for the NFL.

loganriebel 4y ago
The reality is that top players can make more from streaming/content than playing. To take your Doublelift example he has been full time streaming for 2 years but is coming back to LCS this year. He's taking a massive paycut by playing LCS vs. full time streaming/content. These inflated pro salaries are good for the lower tier players who don't have the entertainer personality
bitwize 4y ago
- ketzo 4y ago
  No need for the weird shot at women. Streaming makes more money than esports, period.
  - spinach 4y ago
    Is it simply a shot at women? As the only way women can make money that way is if there is an audience of men willing to watch and spend money on them.
  - runnerup 4y ago
    Indeed. The top woman streaming on twitch ranks #64 and the second most popular woman does not break the top 100.
- IntelMiner 4y ago
  misogyny isn't cool
tashoecraft 4y ago
I only follow pubg esports, but I'm just not seeing how a pro player in an expensive country can afford to make a living. The competition is brutal, the hours to be at the top are very high, and unless you're a top streamer the income is very low. Now this can all be hand waved away with "they're just playing a video game, they're lucky" but I think that misses the point. To be a pro at one game, you have to dedicate everything to that game. Revenue sharing has to go up for longevity of esports.
- wingerlang 4y ago
  Isn't the very definition of 'pro' that they get paid to do it? Prize money, sure, but also sponsors.
  - michaelt 4y ago
    You can get paid without getting paid well. Take [1] as a random example - 18th in the pubg global championship, and they've made $53k split between 3 players in 2022. How many hours of practice do you think they have to put in, to be 18th in the global championship and earn $17.7k per person? [1] https://liquipedia.net/pubg/BBL_Esports https://liquipedia.net/pubg/BBL_Esports
    - wingerlang 4y ago
      Aren't they getting a salary for those hours of practice? That's what I mean with pro, as in professional, as in having gaming as their profession. Honestly, $17.7k for _18th_ place, in PUBG of all games, seems very high to me as a prize. But I am sure they split a lot of that with their organization, coaches and whatever they have, and taxes on top of that. Even so, people work for minimum wage so it all just, depends.
      - tashoecraft 4y ago
        A lot of the teams aren't organizations, and the ones who are can sometimes get pretty low salaries, from what I understand. With how much movement there is in the leaderboard year to year, the team who came in first in 2020 placed last in 2021. For how many hours of time played, it's well below minimum wage. And of course it is different, playing a game has plenty of benefits, I'm just thinking about longevity of esports as a whole.

Ekaros 4y ago

And on other side popular players can possibly make same money as streamers or influencers with less risk and effort.

deelowe 4y ago
To me, this is what's changing and it's not just changing esports.
- makestuff 4y ago
  Yeah you see it in the NBA/NFL with a lot of players building their personal brand via Youtube/TikTok/Podcast/etc. It will be interesting to see how this plays out over the next decade. Will businesses keep dumping money into influencer advertising, or will it die down and go back to just the mega stars getting deals. I know right now even people with 10-20k followers on a platform can still get brand deals because it is a new form of targeting. I think the hard thing to solve for is how do you measure the ROI besides use code "XYZ" for 20% off your first month or whatever.
beckingz 4y ago
So the classic sports model? Step 1. Be good at a sport and become famous Step 2. Convert Fame into money by endorsing products.
- Godel_unicode 4y ago
  In most sports leagues the vast majority of player income is salary from their team. There is something approaching a power law around endorsement money, even in the NBA it’s really only the top 10 earners who make more than 20-30% on their non-basketball revenue streams.
- HDThoreaun 4y ago
  This is true for soccer, but almost all American athletes make the vast majority of their income off team salary.
- 4y ago

Godel_unicode 4y ago

That’s essentially the thesis of the article, yes. Hype here refers not to the players or the fans but rather to the business side. Investors are looking for returns and not finding them.

rwnspace 4y ago

I believe Faker was the first million dollar salary in eSports on 2017, IIRC LoL moved to a franchising system for it's leagues, which brought in a ton of 'naive' capital, the combination caused a gigantic inflation in NA player salaries and a significant one in EU. This was recognised as a bubble by veterans in the industry and talked about on various talkshows at the time. I completely agree with your point about salaries and really just want to add that this has been expected for years. ESports is still growing, it's just the rate will seem more sane to those in the know.

Macha 4y ago

The flip side is that the earning potential of the top players are incredibly lopsided, whether that be the top competing players in terms of winnings, or those most able to be a personality in terms of streaming. It's not clear the teams themselves contribute much to either of those areas - training is most often self directed or with play groups that may not align with teams, and it's not like e.g. soccer where there's big physical infrastructure like stadiums that clearly the players need an organisation to provide. Instead the venues for in-person events are provided by the tournaments, not the teams, and pretty much everything else the players need to earn money is online.