The LVP (League of Professional Video Games), which arrived in the country less than a year ago, foresees a hopeful future in the field of competitive video games in 2019. Juan Diego García Squetino, Country Manager of the LVP for Argentina, Chile and Peru; assured that "the objective is to develop electronic sports in the same way as traditional sports." Thus, the regional Super League will be similar to the one in Spain.

The numbers help to understand the interest in this business segment. The League of Legends world final attracted 99.5 million people behind the screens (and 50,000 attended the stadium in South Korea) with the streaming service provided by the Twitch platform. The prize for the winning team was US$ 3 million.

The eSports business moves along the same lines as traditional sports. Mass audiences ensure that large sums are paid for the rights to broadcast the competitions. The brands want to sponsor players and teams to promote themselves. And at the same time, the creators of the games compete to deliver better prizes and thus achieve mass.

Individually, an amateur player in Argentina can win more than US$ 1,104 for a single game. Therefore, many young people already consider this discipline as a profession.

Locally

Argentina tries not to fall behind the global boom in eSports. The Argentine Association of Electronic Sports seeks to regulate the activity and generate a framework of professionalism. Although it could be thought that most of the players are in the Capital Federal or Greater Buenos Aires, the segment is moving strong in the interior: one of the emblematic cases is the Ice of Santa Cruz League.

One of the first measures of the LVP was to create official local leagues of Clash Royale and League of Legends, in order to generate talents and teams that compete in SuperLeague2019.

But the biggest bet was with the Master League. The organization made an agreement with Fibertel for the operator to be "title sponsor" of the tournament, which gathers the eight best teams in Argentina in two seasons, with a cup at the end of the year and face-to-face events on special dates. The Fibertel Master League is one of the official access routes to the new Latin American League that Riot Games is preparing for this year. In addition, it distributes unprecedented prizes in our country.

Silvana Cataldo, Manager of Loyalty and Brand Experience at Telecom, considered that entertainment is one of the strategic pillars of operators. Companies have been promoting various gaming initiatives for several years that have been highly valued by customers. "With this alliance in the world of eSports with the Professional Videogame League, we seek to evolve in our content platform and bring new quality experiences to customers," she said.

Internationally

The LVP, one of the largest operators of videogame competitions in the world and the largest eSports organization in the Spanish language, has offices in Madrid, Barcelona, ??Buenos Aires, Bogota, Mexico and London. Operates the most prestigious national competitions (Superliga Orange in Spain, National Circuits of Argentina, Chile, Peru, Colombia and Mexico), major international tournaments (Gamergy Masters, CR Nations Cup) and online competition platforms (ArenaGG, PlayStation League) and distributes in Spanish world events such as the League of Legends Championship Series or the Call of Duty World League.

2019 will be a great year for eSports in Latin America, according to the organization. The scene will be professionalized, ordered with a clear project of growth and long-term expansion. The competition will provide a very high level show and will be aspirational for amateur teams. For its part, the scene that had the National Circuits as the main competition will continue for all amateur teams that want to start their way and ascend to the top category at the end of each season.

For its part, the AFA (Argentine Football Association) launched a call for the first FIFA Argentina 19 virtual football national team. The objective is to classify in the FIFA eWorld Cup, the most important virtual football competition in the world, to be played in London.  One of the main income sources generated by this competition is through TV. Several channels are interested in broadcasting matches and summaries.

Colossal numbers

Around 13 million gamers in the world participate in about 2,000 championships every year. ESports generated US$ 1.5 billion in 2017, almost double that of 2016. In 2019 it is expected to reach an audience of 250 million followers by 2021. The first Fortnite World Cup, organized by Epic Games, will be developed from April 13 to July 28 and will distribute, in total, about US$ 100 million, the highest figure in the history of electronic sports.

In 2018, the five eSports that distributed the most prizes were Dota 2 (US$ 41 million), Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (US$ 22.5 million), Fortnite (US$ 20 million), League of Legends (US$ 14 million) and PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds (US$ 6.7 million).