The US government officially recognized eSport games players as professional athletes for visa purposes in July 2013.
American Actor, Ashton Kutcher, recently invested in an eSports start up.
Snoop Dogg called Call of Duty the “coolest game in the hood.” He also provided his voice to CoD: Ghosts.
The Robert Morris University in Chicago offers scholarships for eSports. Yes, you can study eSports at university.
There will be 165 million eSports enthusiasts across the globe in 2018.
More than 100 million people have tuned into Twitch, eSports biggest streaming site.
The 2015 Dota2 Championship had a total prize pool of $18 million dollars.
Cineplex, Canada’s largest chain of movie theatres, spent $15 million dollars to bring eSports to movie theatres.
The Youngest eSports Millionaire is 16 year old Pakistani gamer Sumail Hassan Syed aka “Suma1L”.
Only 2 of the highest grossing eSports stars are women. To address the gender disparity Blizzard and the International eSports Federation have started hosting women only leagues.
Sports broadcaster MTG acquired a majority stake of the holding company for ESL for $87million dollars.
Coke, Red Bull, Intel, McDonalds and Nissan have all sponsored eSports events or teams to date.
Global eSports revenue is expected to hit $252 million for 2015.
Prize money across eSports events is expected to exceed $71 million in 2015.
Turner Broadcasting is bringing video gaming tournaments to network TV in 2016.
