E-Sports Professionals

The first official video game competition occurred at Stanford University on October 19, 1972, when students gathered to compete in a game called Spacewar. The prize: a one-year subscription to Rolling Stone magazine. In 1980, the video game maker Atari hosted the Space Invaders Championship, which attracted 10,000 players. In 1981, Twin Galaxies was formed to record and maintain world records in video gaming. It is still in existence today. The popularity of games created by Nintendo fueled the growth of the early e-sports industry. The Nintendo World Championships were held in 1990, with the championship round held at Universal Studios in California. The first e-sports leagues—such as the Cyberathlete Professional League, the Professional Gamers League, and QuakeCon—were formed in the late 1990s.

In the 2000s, home computers became more powerful and less expensive and the growth of the Internet and improved connectivity speeds opened up the possibility for online gaming. Companies such as Nintendo and Xbox began sponsoring online gaming competitions. Twitch, a livestreaming platform that focused on video games, was launched in 2011. It became immensely popular and fueled intense interest in online gaming and even the viewing of top e-sports professionals as they practiced and competed for cash prizes. In 2014, Robert Morris University launched the first collegiate e-sports varsity team; more than 70 colleges and universities now have such teams. Today, e-sports has moved from a niche sport to a multibillion dollar industry. Annual revenue for the worldwide e-sports industry was $1.8 billion in 2023 and was expected to grow by more than 18 percent from 2023 through 2032, according to a report by ResearchandMarkets.com. As of December 2024, nearly $1.7 billion in prize money had been awarded to e-sports competitors, according to the prize-tracking Web site E-Sports Earnings.