The Rise of Esports

Stanford University for the game Spacewar. Stanford students were invited to an "Intergalactic Spacewar Olympics". The grand prize was a year's subscription for Rolling Stone Magazine.

Sponsored by Atari in 1980 was the earliest large scale video game competition. It attracted more than 10,000 participants across the United States, establishing competitive gaming as a mainstream hobby

Televised eSports events aired during this period included the American show, Starcade, with a total of 133 episodes, on which contestants would attempt to beat each other's high scores.

Large eSports tournaments in the 1990s include the 1990 Nintendo World Championships, which toured across the United States, and held its finals at Universal Studios Hollywood in California. Nintendo held a 2nd World Championships in 1994.

Tournaments established in the late 1990s include the Cyberathlete Professional League (CPL), QuakeCon, and the Professional Gamers League. PC games played at the CPL included the Counter-Strike series, Quake series, and Warcraft.

The Korean e-Sports Association, an arm of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, was founded in 2000 to promote and regulate eSports in the country.

Many successful tournaments were founded during this period, including the World Cyber Games, the Intel Extreme Masters, and Major League Gaming.

The 2000s was a popular time for televised eSports. (OnGameNet, XLEAGUE.TV, Championship Gaming Series) But all of these Network, among others, closed down right before the 2010’s.

The popularity and emergence of online streaming services have helped the growth of eSports in this period, and are the most common method of watching tournaments. Twitch, an online streaming platform launched in 2011, routinely streams popular eSports competitions.

In 2013, viewers of the platform watched 12 billion minutes of video on the service, with the two most popular Twitch broadcasters being League of Legends and Dota 2.

Since 2013 Universities and Colleges in the United States such as Robert Morris University Illinois and the University of Pikeville have recognized eSports players as varsity level athletes and offer athletic scholarships.

In 2017, TESPA (Texas eSports Association), Blizzard Entertainment's collegiate eSports division, unveiled its new initiative to provide scholarships and prizes for collegiate eSports clubs competing in its tournaments worth US$1 million.

After a long back and forth with the government,between the United States Government and Riot Game's eSports Manager Nick Allen, the U.S. finally now recognize eSports players as professional athletes, and will grant them visas under that identifier. This will dramatically streamline the process for foreign players to enter the U.S. for events, and it's a big victory for the Industry.

Season 3 League of Legends World Championship was held in a sold-out Staples Center.

Attendance - ~15,000 Attendees
32 Million Unique Views from Streaming Service: Twitch.tv

In 2015, the first Esports Arena was launched in Santa Ana, California as the U.S.'s first dedicated eSports facility.

In 2018, the Luxor Las Vegas will open the first eSports Arena on the Las Vegas Strip and additional locations are planned to open in the coming decade.