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E-sports have quickly reached a massive worldwide audience and become a global phenomenon. With its growing popularity, global changes have taken place, such as establishing a framework for franchising.
This blog will cover how franchising works in E-sports, along with the exploration of the participating frameworks and what the future holds for E-sports franchises.
E-sports have emerged as a significantly popular global phenomenon. This rising popularity has seen the emergence of professional E-sports teams and leagues.
With investment in the skills of the team members, through effective training and recruitment practices, the professional E-sports teams are growing into franchises.
Franchises not only benefit the team members by offering them the opportunity to participate in various professional leagues, but also promote tournament revenues through merchandising, sponsorships, ticket sales and so on.
The franchising system in E-sports works similarly to North American professional leagues, with teams spending a set amount to compete in specific leagues.
Franchising in E-sports leagues first entered the scene in 2018 with Riot Games pursuing the development of the NA LCS, its own North American League. Soon, other major development companies, such as Blizzard Entertainment and Activision, followed suit.
Thus, major game development studios were key to franchising becoming a thing in E-sports, as their industry clout made way for professional E-sports stars and competitions, attracting sponsorship deals and investments.
Additionally, the growing popularity of E-sports also raked in viewers from all over the world, soon turning E-sports franchises into multi-million dollar ventures.
You probably have heard of some of the following franchise names in E-sports:
Overwatch League
eMLS League
Call of Duty League
King Pro League 2020
NA LCS League
EU LEC League
iGames are quickly becoming relevant as online games. This can be enhanced by franchising being implemented in iGaming as well, to further improve audience perceptions of such games.
If your favourite rummy online game becomes part of a renowned franchised E-sports tournament, more people will consider downloading a rummy app.
The E-sports franchising business model’s structure sort of follows professional sports leagues in North America, like the NFL or the NBA.
Franchises require a few minimum requirements for E-sports teams to be able to compete professionally. This minimum requirement includes the franchise fees that guarantee a place for a team to participate in a league.
In certain franchised leagues, teams that are composed of notable professional E-sports players representing different regions participate in tournaments. Examples of this are the NA LCS representing North America and the EU LEC representing Europe.
The E-sports franchising economics is built on prize pools, sponsorships, merchandising, funding, and player transfers.
Ticket sales also contribute to the revenue generated by major E-sports franchises. Viewership on the YouTube Live or Twitch platforms also help generate revenue.
International attention, branding, and stability are obtained by E-sports through franchising.
A most prominent benefit of E-sports franchising is the stability that teams and players receive. This stability is composed of thought-out contracts and stable salaries.
This not only secures the careers of prominent E-sports players but also gives up-and-coming talents something to look forward to. Stable salaries are often associated with career opportunities, which franchises often represent for future E-sports prospects.
Franchising often helps E-sports teams build a brand for themselves. A recognizable brand for an E-sports team attracts viewer investment. Viewer investment increases engagement, ticket sales, merchandise sales and for popular team brands, even sponsorship deals.
Thus, branding not only helps the teams, but also the franchised leagues by increasing engagement from viewers and notable brand names. This process culminates with increasing viewership of the E-sports leagues, reaching new heights.
Franchising in E-sports has led to higher engagement of the audience all over the world. The influence of well-known names such as Activision and Riot Games with the franchised teams and leagues have facilitated engagement all over the world.
Thus, franchises are helping E-sports teams develop global brands that contribute to ensuring they receive attention from the world.
Franchising is increasingly becoming the future of E-sports. However, it is not all sunshine and rainbows. Before entering into the world of E-sports franchising, you would need to know about certain challenges faced.
The cost of entering into E-sports franchising can start quite steep. Franchise fees, initial infrastructure investments, salaries of team members, as well as additional expenses can make maintaining a franchise a very pricey endeavor.
In the franchising of any performance-based activity, consistency can be among the biggest uncertainties to ensure. Even if you are running a team consisting of the most talented E-sports players, can you ensure that they will not falter?
While human error is a part of the experience, it can cause rewards to drop off, sponsorships to end agreements and reduced audience engagement.
E-sports franchising is becoming a lucrative opportunity for entrepreneurs. Its appeal to a younger audience has developed a specific niche that can have long-term implications for the engagement of E-sports.
E-sports’ tendency to attract technology innovation also leads to harnessing futuristic trends to sustain engagement. AI, AR, and VR can completely revamp the experience of both players and the E-sports audience, driving the industry forward.
The professional appeal of E-sports franchises can also make the industry of E-sports a lucrative and stable employment opportunity. Thus, franchises can consistently attract more youth to E-sports as time moves forward.
Another future context for franchising improving the scope of E-sports in attracting career prospects can be the franchising of iGames, such as rummy and poker.
It will become equivalent to a more traditional sporting event, like a football league, as rummy online can no longer be deemed a harmful card game, as people will start to download rummy app to get a taste of the sporting experience as observed among professionals.
The future of E-sports is gaining more and more certainty as a mainstream entertainment unit due to its increasing global appeal. Franchising is a factor that has added to the mainstream credibility of E-sports.
Not only that, franchising attracts viewership, engagement as well as future prospects to E-sports.
Keeping an eye on Twitch and other platforms for upcoming E-sports leagues can be more effective in understanding the strong impact of franchising on the industry.
