Money can not buy happiness? How are eSports and pro-players in the CIS

Kirill "Likkrit" Malofeyev

“LoL is almost dead. Teams can not support the expectations of players - there is simply no money. The teams are leaving (next season there will be no Virtus.pro), casters are leaving. From the point of view of LoL money in the CIS, it rolled back a year and a half ago, ”at the end of last year the former M19 player Kirill Malofeev, known by the nickname Likkrit, assessed the situation in eSports discipline League of Legends.

How good is everything or, on the contrary, is bad with money in e-sports in the CIS? Where does the money come from? What are the salaries of pro-players? What to do for the development of eSports in the CIS? We analyze the situation and ask the opinions of industry experts.

Where does the money in eSports come from

According to the report of the analytical company SuperData Research (sent free of charge from here ), which is engaged in research of the gaming industry, in the total volume of the eSports market, the lion’s share is made up of money from sponsors and advertising. In 2017, in the global boiler of the e-sports economy, they accumulated 70%. Yes, everything is very simple and banal: major global brands pay for advertising their brands on eSports events - and so does eSports. The remaining shares are approximately equally divided in prize awards for tournaments, e-sports bets, sale of tickets for game events and sale of products with teams' symbols.

How do cyber sports organizations earn

The lion’s share of the organization’s revenue is still the same advertisement. Brands sponsor the organization so that their logo “shines” as often as possible: in the frame, on the websites and clothes of the players. The more the team wins, the more expensive it can sell the sponsorship package. According to Roman Dvoryankin, general manager of the e-sports organization of Virtus.pro, 70% of the revenue comes from sponsorship contracts.

In addition, organizations sell merch - goods with their own attributes. Another source of income is prize money from winning tournaments, but this is the smallest part of the profit.

“The most popular product with us is the replicas of the teams game jerseys. They sell about 10 thousand units per year, the rest of the articles - several thousand each. Thanks to online stores, sales in 2017 increased by tens of percent compared to 2016. Now we are selling merch for hundreds of thousands of dollars , ”says Roman Dvoryankin.

For reasons of commercial secrets, organizations do not disclose details of their income.

Earnings cybersportsmen

Cybersportsmen who are in teams sign contracts. There are indicated the conditions for the player to receive a salary: performance for only one team for a certain period of time, wearing team symbols and other items. This practice is common in serious organizations. Plus, the players' bank accounts are replenished with funds from winnings in tournaments (more on this below).

In addition to wages, cybersportsmen often earn on streaming. And streamers earn in several ways. The first is a banal donate, when viewers donate their own money to a streamer. The second way is partnership. By entering into a partnership agreement with Twitch, you can sell a paid subscription to the channel - part of the funds is sent to a streamer. In addition, the streamer receives payments for displaying short advertising videos on its channel (which AdBlock quite successfully blocks). Different companies can “knock” on the most popular tape drives and offer cooperation for a fee - for example, to offer money for “hanging” the brand logo on the stream. The more viewers watch the player, the more willing they are to order advertising. For example, a player under the nickname SilverName, who is on the Team Spirit team and plays Hearthstone, easily gathers 12-15 thousand viewers on his stream.

Now specifically about the salaries of players in various cyber organizations.

What are the salaries of cybersportsmen in the CIS

Virtus.pro
According to Roman Dvoryankin, general manager of Virtus.pro, the average monthly salary of a cyber sportsman in his organization was $ 8,000 for 2017. But despite the concluded sponsorship contracts (the amount of which was not disclosed), the winnings from the prize money and the sale of merchandise, Virtus.pro plans to break even without a break even by 2018.

Na'Vi
Natus Vincere CEO Evgeny Zolotarev in 2017 reported that in his organization the salaries of professional cybersportsmen playing in Dota 2 were $ 5-6 thousand per month. According to him, these are relatively small salaries, but at the Dota-2 tournaments there are very large prize funds ($ 3-4 million each). According to him, the salaries of players in CS: GO are somewhat higher: although they start at $ 1-1.5 thousand, they can reach up to $ 10 thousand per month. Also, Natus Vincere manager Dmitry Repin said that in 2017, professional players at World of Tanks receive an average salary of $ 500-700 per month (the line-up on WoT was closed in June 2017).

Team spirit
In a 2016 interview , a young Dota 2 player from Team Spirit (he was in 10th grade then) under the nickname Ramzes666 shared information about his salary. He said that if you take an average adult salary of 30 thousand rubles, he earns a month 10-15 times more. Now he plays for Virtus.pro.

What are the salaries of cyber sportsmen abroad?

Team liquid
According to theverge.com, in 2017, the Team Liquid e-sports organization paid Dota 2 players from $ 100 to $ 200 thousand annually.

Ninjas in pajamas
The general director of the Swedish team Ninjas in Pajamas revealed information about the annual salary of their players: in 2017, the team paid players in CS: GO $ 170-230 thousand, and "doters" about $ 116 thousand.

Astralis
Players of the Danish team Astralis under the nicknames of devve and Xyp9x in 2016 shared information about the monthly salary of players in CS: GO. As it turned out, on average it is $ 9 thousand.

Evil geniuses
At the end of 2016, a well-known Chinese cybersportsman for Dota 2 with the nickname Chuan reported that a strong player in a year in a team like Evil Geniuses earns about $ 720 thousand annually (salary + prize money).

Overwatch league
The Blizzard company (the author of the games World of Warcraft, Overwatch, Hearthstone, Heroes of the Storm, etc.) created the e-sports league Overwatch League. According to the rules of the league, club management can sign athletes for a minimum annual salary of $ 50,000, in addition to providing medical insurance.

For clarity, all of these salaries are summarized in one table, highlighting the three organizations from the CIS and three - foreign. Annual salaries are converted to monthly.



According to the table, it is noticeable that the salaries of professional players in high-level teams of the CIS countries are approximately 25% lower than the average salaries of cybersportsmen of foreign teams.

Earnings of players, based on the prize

Most often, e-sports organizations take no more than 10-20% of the winning team in the tournament. This condition is spelled out in player contracts. The general manager of Virtus.pro, Roman Dvoryankin, said in an interview: “80–90% of the prize money remains with the players. Last year we earned more than two million dollars in prize money - the organization received a little of them. ”

First, we will examine the teams in which disciplines six eSports organizations have, which we have identified in the first table.



Despite the abundance of teams in different disciplines, tournaments are most often held in two: CS: GO and Dota 2. Thus, in 2018, only the “doters” and “xerus” of six selected organizations participated in tournaments, winning prizes. The following table shows which team received how much money from the prize pools of tournaments that have been held since the beginning of 2018.



Of the five dozen professional e-sports tournaments announced and underway, only two will be held at specific venues in the CIS (both in Moscow): Dota 2 EPICENTER XL at the Yota Arena and LCL Spring Split 2018. The prize fund of the first event is $ 1 million. Second - $ 176 thousand. The lion's share of the upcoming tournaments will be held online, but the United States and China are still the main venues for on-site tournaments.

It turns out that money spinning in eSports goes into circulation mainly not in the CIS countries. Despite this, teams of players from the CIS will take part in at least half of the tournaments held - they will go to Stockholm, Budapest, Shanghai, Marseille and Los Angeles. The tournament schedule is known only until the middle of the year - the rest are announced later.

Not everyone is doing well

However, not every cyberdiscipline and organization in the CIS is doing well with money. At the end of 2016, the former players of the ANOX Hearthstone team under the nicknames SilverName, Iner, ShtanUdachi and NickChipper left the organization due to non-payment of salaries for four months. Now they are members of Team Spirit.

A professional Russian player in the League of Legends under the pseudonym Likkrit at the end of 2017 complained about the lack of money in his discipline in the CIS. He believes that there is no money left on the professional LoL scene in the CIS, so good players must leave the region and join other European teams. For his criticism, he received a ban from the developers of League of Legends to speak at tournaments in this discipline.

“LoL in the CIS for players in terms of money will roll back a year and a half ago. We are returning, albeit not in those times when the salary was 15 thousand rubles, but still quite far away, ”reports Likkrit.

The reason is high expenses

To maintain eSports organizations need money. General Manager of Virtus.pro Roman Dvoryankin reports that the main items of expenditure are the players' salaries. In addition, there are training bases, room rent, payment for meals, flights to tournaments and hotel accommodation. Not to mention the small staff of the organization. According to Roman, Virtus.pro allocates $ 2.4 million annually only for the salaries of cybersportsmen.

Businessman Yevgeny Tugolukov, whose fortune was estimated by Forbes in 2011 at $ 550 million, now owns the M19 e-sports organization (created in 2017). According to him, the maintenance of the M19 takes at least $ 500,000 a year - and this was at a time when only a team of League of Legends players was part of the M19. Now the organization has another Dota 2 team.

What to do to improve the situation in the CIS?

With this question, we turned to the speakers of the eSPORTconf Russia 2018 eSports conference: Ivan Voznyak , producer of the Mail.Ru Group e-sports direction, and Roman Alymov, president of the Kaliningrad branch of the Computer Sports Federation of Russia.

According to President Roman Alymov , everything is quite good in eSports in Russia.



“The growth rate of the audience and the eSports market is already quite high. Today, according to research and forecasts published by PwC, the growth of the global eSports market is more than 20% and should increase from $ 327 million to $ 874 million by 2022. Much depends on how computer sports will continue to develop and whether or not the authorities will participate in this " , - says Roman Alymov.
[approx. - Roman talks about the PwC report , which states that in 2016, eSports revenues in Russia amounted to $ 3.8 million, while in the US this figure exceeded $ 108 million. However, analysts expect annual growth in the eSports industry in Russia level of 33.2%. According to experts, by 2021, Russian cybersport revenue will grow to $ 16 million. However, by that time in the US, this figure will be $ 299 million.]



The expert believes that the emergence of new cyber-sports organizations in the CIS depends on the growth rate of the cybersport market and on how quickly the sports system will be built. The growth of wages of cybersportsmen, according to Roman, also depends on several factors:

“Pro-teams have fairly good salaries. Earnings are different from the discipline and type of programs they perform. At the same time, wage growth also depends on many factors. First of all, this is the interest of the game’s copyright holder: whether e-sports is in their strategy for the development and advancement of the game. The second is audience involvement. Depending on this, there will be an understanding that this or that discipline (program) will be of interest to brands, sponsors, and partners. It's no secret that today brands go to eSports because of the audience. ”

In his opinion, the players themselves must train, participate in tournaments and show themselves - this is the only way to expect a high level of earnings. And as soon as the CIS computer sport system will be completely formed, organizations will find it easier to find and promote talented athletes.

Ivan Wozniak is not so optimistic. He believes that for the development of eSports in the CIS it is necessary to work better in all directions: to create understandable programs (including tournaments and leagues), to provide employment, to develop infrastructure and to achieve the availability of gaming machines.



“Now everyone is engaged in everything, and many do not understand what to do and where there is more money. Make an interesting sport out of it - there will be more money. Support young players - they will bring more wins and more money. Work with professionals - you will have more money , ”says Ivan Wozniak.

In his opinion, not only federations are responsible for the development of eSports in the CIS, but also large companies, as well as sports organizations themselves. And when the general public has an interest in cybersport, then organizations will have more sponsors, more prizes, and higher salaries of cybersportsmen. But in order to compete with large foreign organizations, it is necessary to beat them, learn from the strongest and work better than others.

On the question of what to do professional athletes in the CIS who do not pay much, Ivan replies:

“Search for another team, another game. Stop doing nonsense and weigh your real odds. If you want to be on top, get ready, that there are few places. ”

eSPORTconf 2018 will be held in Moscow on April 3. See the program of the event on the website .