Doing sports without working up a sweat!!!

Okay, before I mislead you any further, I think its only fair to point out to you guys that I am not going to talk about some revolutionary new way to get your summer body in 2 months or whatever. I am in fact going to write about the rise of e-sports, which is in actual fact just playing video games (competitively of course), aaand you'd probably just become fat if that is all you do. Just saying :)

Just recently Riot Games hosted season two of the world championship for "League of Legends", a game they developed.  A typical League of Legends game would last 20-40 minutes where 10 players (5 on each side) would choose from a host of playable characters and work together with the aim to destroy to opponent's base. Each playable character is unique and they all perform a range of roles. I know this probably sounds geeky and you are at the moment imagining a typical gamer who looks like that guy below.

But honestly, what is amazing is that the total prize money for League of Legends World Championships is $5million USD. Even the US Open (tennis) only pays 20million in total prize money for various divisions (men and women). 

According to Riot Games, 32.5 million people world wide has downloaded the game league of legends, 4.2 million people play it every single day. These numbers are absolutely incredible. As far as I know, the only major partners for Riot Games are Razer and Alienware. Two companies that have products absolutely congruent with Riot Games.



First guy to ever become the face of Chanel



However I believe that there is an avenue for other companies to seize this growing avenue to market their products. I mean if marketers can pull selling earrings during tennis and saying absolutely nothing for perfume, this should be a walk in the park right? What do you guys think?

Maria Sharapova and her dangling earrings



Side fun fact

• Last year, a 22 year old Spanish gamer named  Lucas Ordoñez went from typical gamer to pro race car driver for Nissan. To quickly summarise how it happened, basically 19 year old Lucas took part in a competition to play the popular racing game Gran Turismo. After several rounds he became the winner, fast forward three years, he was 2nd place in Le Mans 24 hour event.