How easy is it to make money from Esports?

Esports Industry

February 9, 2020

Oscar Rojas

How easy is it to make money from esports? I often find myself wondering about the answer to this question.

There are many of us out there that could only dream of making money from playing video games competitively, but if you want to take that dream into the realm of reality, how hard would it be? How to earn money from esports? There are other ways to earn money, besides esports betting and Fantasy LCS.

In this article, I take a look at the opportunities there are out there to make money from playing competitively, I dive into how pro gaming teams can actually make money, and also how there may be other opportunities to pull in cash from the industry.

Create your esports team or join an existing one

Now that the esports industry has matured to the point where the entire scene is worth more than a billion dollars, there are many different methods that pro gaming teams use to make money. In this section, I’ll go over the main methods available.

How do Pro Gaming Teams make money?

Perhaps the most obvious is prize pool winnings from winning events. Every major esports tournament will have a prize pool. The better a pro gaming team does in the tournament, the more money they’ll take home.

In this regard, many major esports titles now have multiple tournaments each year that have prize pools of over $1 million, so there’s plenty of opportunity within just the prize pools itself. It doesn’t just stop there, though. There is also some level of developer support for pro-gaming teams. In League of Legends, for example, Riot requires that all NA LCS players are paid at least $75,000 + a possible bonus of 35% of the league’s revenue among all pro players per year whilst under contract.

In CSGO, teams that make it into the major are paid a portion of revenue that comes from the sale of in-game stickers that the everyday player can purchase to support their favorite team. Finally, and perhaps the most lucrative opportunity for pro-gaming teams is sponsorships.

As you may know, esports tournaments attract hundreds of thousands of viewers, and sponsors will pay top dollars to sponsor teams and individual players. There’s relatively little information about how much pro gaming teams get paid, but it all depends on how big the team is and how big their fanbase is.

Become a professional esports players

If you like playing video games more than anything else and have exceptional skills, you could start your career as a professional player: there are also universities to help you get into the esports industry (not just as a player).

How easy is it to be a Pro Gamer?

Being a pro gamer isn’t easy. Just like any other professional sport, it takes hours of dedication and practice each week. How to make money in esports? Well, you need to compete at a high level; you’ll need to be able to put in as many training hours as your competition is. For many teams, that means putting in 8-10 hours per day.

Then you may wonder how to become an esports player. If you can’t put that many hours in, due to work or school, you may still be able to compete at a slightly lower level and enter intermediate tournaments. You’ll also need to find a team that’s willing to grind out the training and practice hours with you. It may come as a surprise, but finding a consistent team of players that can get along together and fight through the difficulties is the hardest part of competing in games like CSGO and League of Legends.

If you’d rather be picked up by an existing team looking for skilled players, your best shot is to play well on competitive ladders. This may mean fighting your way into ESEA’s S Rank on CSGO or fighting in the Challenger ladder of League Of Legends. This may seem like an impossible task, but if you can’t accomplish that, you may find later on that you’re just not skilled enough to compete at a high level.

Finally, you need to be able to deal with the emotional stress that it takes to play competitively. Nobody truly understands how emotionally challenging it can be to constantly work towards playing better against other teams only to be defeated every last time. The esports industry is incredibly cutthroat and you have to be ruthless to stay at the top. There’s a reason why there are so many instances of players breaking down in tears after winning a big event.

You never get to see how much effort goes into the practice and training behind the scenes. Here’s a recap of how you can get involved in the pro gaming scene.

As a Group:

Play with your team regularly, as much as possible.
Play against other teams in your practice time and use these matches to learn more about how to play effectively.
Enter in online tournaments. (A quick search for tournaments can find some good results)
Enter qualifiers for major tournaments held by the game developers.

As an Individual:

Climb through the leaderboards in your game of choice.
Make it to the top of the leaderboards and then start looking for teams that are hiring you.
Play regularly, and always pay attention to your gameplay so that you’re constantly improving.
Realize that playing competitively with a team is an entirely new experience.

Therefore, below here our summary about Pro Gaming Money:

Pro gamers make money from esports by winning tournaments
Some developers financially support the pro players that play their game competitively
Sponsors pay out a lot to have their products sponsored by a team

Other money-making opportunities in esports

If you struggle to make it as a pro gamer, there are still other ways to make money from esports, even better, there are actual jobs in the esports industry. In this section, we take a look at some other options you could look into to make money.

Become a Streamer

Another industry that has blown up alongside the esports scene in recent years is the world of video game streaming. If you feel like you can do a better job at entertaining people online than you can at playing at a competitive level, you may find that you’ll have a better chance of making money by streaming.

Twitch.tv is a great place to start. You’ll need to stream regularly and at consistent times to build your viewership to the point where you can start making money. It could take anywhere from a few months to a few years to see success. It all depends on who sees you and when.

On the other hand, the streaming content does not even mean that you have to play all the time, there are several channels on twitch and YouTube set up by esports journalist streamers.

As for this, some streamers from Twitch and YouTube ha reached income peaks that cross the million dollars cap such as the case of Ninja (over 5.000.000/year on Twitch) or Pewdiepie (Almost 70.000.000/2019)

While these are, evidently, special cases, the numbers are not so bad for the average streamer. On YouTube, the average income ranges the 3000$/month, while Twitch seems to have an average of over 5000$/month on average.

On the other hand, you should keep in mind that the money that esports professional streamers make is not limited to the platform. As part of their network, pro streamers usually get contacted by sponsors and even get paid to publish content that is sensitive to their “game fan” target audience

Create your own Fantasy teams

If you are a super esports fan this may sound interesting. Some sites currently allow you to assemble a team of professional players and bet on Fantasy esports. Besides, just as it works with Fantasy Football, the performance of your tailored team will depend on the players’ real-life statistics.

Bet on your favorite teams

If you’re really into a specific esports game and know your teams in and out, you may have a good chance at betting on the outcome of teams in competitive matches.

A lot of bookies are very new to the scene, so if you’ve been around the esports scene for longer, you might have some insider information on teams that the bookies wouldn’t consider when setting their odds. You can check out a list of the most-rated esports betting sites out there.

Did you know that you can even bet with Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies such as the Unikrn Gold?

To move on in the world of betting it is recommended that you are both cold minded and a huge fan of the game. If you go for this as a source of income you need to know as much as possible about the game and the esports scene.

What are the best tournaments? Who is favored to win? What are the players’ statistics? Which weapon, champ, or strategy counters the one that your team uses? Depending on the game title, several factors may change the final outcome of each match, including, of course, luck.

Bet on yourself while playing videogames

You can also make money if you place your bets on your performance. Are you a good player? Then you may be interested in the Unikrn UMode; on the one hand, it allows you to earn money by winning your game matches, but sadly it is only available to US players at the moment. Find out more in our dedicated review!

Get a job within the esports industry

You don’t have to be a pro gamer to be a part of the esports industry. There are now many opportunities to make money. You could write about esports on a website like this, or you could try to become an esports analyst or shoutcaster for lower tier tournaments.

Alternatively, you could use other skills you have to get hired by tournament organization companies like ESL, Dreamhack, LCS, or ECS. There are so many different types of jobs in the esports industry that you will find the right one for you.

Become an esports entrepreneur

Maybe a monthly paycheck isn’t your deal, right? Then you can actually find out how to start an esports business. There is a lot to do here, you could sponsor or create a team, or you can sell merchandise and even land a contract as a tech provider with local teams if that is your business. All you need is an idea and well-done market research to get started.

Do you own a business already?

Then esports may be a nice chance for you to get on board a new market. You could sponsor a local team or streamer to get known in their followers. Local quality streamers usually have over 100.000 active followers, and the prices for announcements and sponsorship are usually lower than traditional media such as radio or TV.

On the other hand, you should so some market research first, not all businesses are suited for the esports market. But if you sell clothing, food, or something that is already related to the geek niche, like collectibles or even games, then you are probably in for the winning.

Invest in esports and gaming companies

Are you used to trading?

The Esports stocks have gone high enough to be a nice trading market for professionals. Even better, mobile gaming stocks have raised so much in the past few years that they are considered the most important part of the gaming market nowadays.

For example, there are some “somewhat safe” investment opportunities based on the companies’ recent growth and next launches. A nice item to review for your portfolio would be TTWO (Take-Two Interactive Software Inc.) which currently prices at 137.15$/unit and showed an EPS growth of 114.0 points since 2019.

Other stocks that you can take part in are ATVI (Blizzard), which is currently recovering after a bad 2019 and the problems regarding W3R, and NEXOF (NEXON Co. Ltd.) which is distributing Fifa online 2018, launching their new FPS on Steam, and the great success of their KartRider Rush, which is finally getting some gaming power after their great time with Maplestory and Combat Arms in the 2000s.