The past few years have seen the rapidly growing success in the esports space as attitudes toward gaming as a whole have been seeing a lot of change – this has allowed for more movement in the space as investors are willing to become more involved, especially those with a public image. Recent months have led to many more eyes being present here too, which has led to the growth of other markets particularly in the betting market despite efforts to reduce the number of players able to participate, here you can find some of the bigger sites that aren’t registered to initiatives such as Gamstop to take part in that cover a range of different interests with esports being included.

Esports has been the most represented of these moves particularly for the public facing celebrity too as some huge names have become involved in the industry during this period. The most recent has been Formula 1 star, Lando Norris, who this past weekend announced that he would be launching his own esports team with a focus on gaming, racing, and content creation. The announcement may be a little less surprising as Lando has his own successful Twitch channel and a previous passion for gaming but does bring more publicity to the growth. Other names include singer Post Malone, who earlier this year announced that he would be becoming the co-owner of Envy, an organisation which hosts some of the biggest teams across a number of games including the Dallas empire in Call of Duty – the passion game for Post.

The biggest and most notable name, and one who had likely been the first to make the shift had been artist and rapper Drake – also known for having a passion in gaming following stream collabs with huge names such as Ninja, Drake had been linked with the very popular organisation 100 Thieves as an investor alongside some other big names – others who may not have shown a big interest publicly in gaming are also involved however as Michael Jordan owns a stake in parent company behind Team Liquid, Steph Curry has become a part owner of TSM, and former football player David Beckham has invested in Guild esports, showing just how far reaching the growth has become. 

The successes are likely to continue as esports and gaming continues to become bigger and attitudes become much more approachable, it’s likely moving forward that other big names will find investment opportunities in the industry – numbers throughout the pandemic period have already started to grow in a trend that is expected to continue, and with fans of more traditional sporting events finding a passion through similar titles in names such as FIFA and the NBA2K league, it may not be long before a wider crossover is managed as demographics move away from a young male teen audience, and into a broader sporting market as a whole – the next question may be who will be the next big celebrity investor to get involved, and what their own impact may be.