February 1 – The fledgling football eSports industry – based predominantly around the EA Sports FIFA game – is growing up fast with professional FIFA gamers often earning more money than professional footballers.
The eSports industry has seen rapid growth from $325 million in 2015 to $696 million in 2017. It is estimated it will be worth $1.5 billion by 2020.
With the increasing revenue has come bigger prize money for the top gamers. The FIFA Interactive World Cup paid out $200,000 to last year’s winner Spencer ‘Gorilla’ Ealing, a huge jump from the $20,000 awarded to the 2016 winner.
A study by igaming company Casumo has found that the average salary for a League 2 professional football player of £47,372, is almost £10,000 less than the average of £56,870 in total tournament prizes for the Top 10 FIFA gamers last year.
Casumo reckons that “with 2,501 professional footballers in the Premier League and English Football League, and 661 of those playing in League 2, incredibly it means that the top FIFA gamers are earning 25% more than all professional players.”
If tournament prizes continue to increase at the same rate, the top FIFA gamers’ earnings could reach £469,008 by 2020. This would beat the average professional footballer’s salary in the Championship, and would mean that the top FIFA gamers would earn more than the majority of all professional footballers in England.
Perhaps time for pushy football parents to get their kids to take their boots off and get back on the game controllers?
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