How Pandemic Changed Esportsmen’s Earnings

COVID-19 exacted a major toll on the revenue of the industry of entertainment and sports. Esports did not stay on the sidelines. According to experts, the earnings of esportmen dropped 30 – 35 percent in comparison to 2019.

Examination of the structure of an esports club’s budget will help us understand the reason for the serious decline of esportsmen’s salaries.

What makes up an esports club’s budget

Despite other professional kinds of sports, esports lack such an important source of income as deductibles for broadcasting of major tournaments. Rights belong to organizers that do not want to share this tasty pie with contestants.

The situation is different in so-called franchise leagues (CoD, LoL ). Organizers support clubs paying them lucrative broadcasting percentages for participation in competitions.

Esportsmen reckon on grabs and individual advertisement only. Additionally, sums in advertisement contracts are pretty modest.

New format – new heroes

Organizers of major LAN tournaments had to face a problem of restrictions on holding tournaments due to COVID-19. Those that have been suffering most are Dota2 rosters. Their main contributor is the International tournament. The eventual cancellation of the International raised a survival question in front of esports clubs.

The way-out was found momentarily – that was a transfer from the LAN format to online. The new format let participants abide by the safety policy. The most important part is that nothing changed for the spectators, they carried on watching matches with streams. On the contrary, ratings of broadcasts in esports boomed as no other sport events took place.

Successful year for Tier-2

Drawing up the balance sheet for esports in a year, experts noticed one curious tendency. Teams from Tier-2 reached financial success. The secret was simple. Esports clubs of the second echelon have a huge experience of fighting online.

It will suffice to illustrate the situation with a CS:GO teams from CIS Gambit Esport. This average roster became the first club from CIS getting a thousand points of the world rating to their active, Besides, the club got a record revenue. The esportsmen’s earnings of 320 thousand dollars was made up by victories on the second level. Gambit played stably on Tier-2 where they earned the plum money.

Gambit showed a traditionally weak performance at major tournaments:

• elimination at the qualifiers for Flashpoint;
• fifth position at IEM.

Their earnings at such events were just miserable – 3 thousand dollars. Returning to their favourite Nine to Five, the club won straight away and got 60 thousand dollars of grabs. And in 2020 Gambit Esport won eight tournaments of this kind.

It is quite reasonably expected that this tendency of redistribution of income for Tier-2 will remain in 2021 as well.