The audience and money involved with e-sports is a microscopic fraction of any major professional sport. This is an interesting nerd culture thing, but if you want a serious example of sports adapting to the internet generation, look at what NBC is doing with the English Premier League.
I don't have the numbers, but I'd bet that the audience for football (soccer) is growing faster in America over the past few years than the whole of e-sports.
Yeah a HUGE world wide sport that has been around for decades and has one of the largest sporting events in the world has more viewers then my nerd watch habit??? GO figure????
Millions upon millions of dollars are being made so sure eSports is a big deal.
Are you using a percentage growth as your measurement or an absolute value because I can guarantee you that if you are using a percentage value this is not true.
it's still unclear where the audience will capp off as far as esports goes.
soccer has been around for most living people's entire lives, whereas esports only spans 1-2 generations at most.
The growth in soccer audience could be largely attributed to tech making it more accessible, whereas with esports people are completely new to the notion of competitive video games.
I don't have the numbers, but I'd bet that the audience for football (soccer) is growing faster in America over the past few years than the whole of e-sports.