The second stop in the 2011 MLG U.S. Pro Circuit in Columbus, Ohio drew over 22.5 million streams on MLG.tv from 164 countries. This was not only good for game companies Microsoft, Blizzard and Activision but also helps sponsors like Stride, Dr. Pepper, Doritos, Sony Ericsson, Gunnar Optics, and Tritton; Mike Hastr0 Rufail thinks pro gaming is only on the rise in the U.S.
The path is relatively tough to make a decent living as a player today, said Rufail. There are only a few guys that really have the opportunities for the big sponsorships, but I really think within the next two years you re going to see a lot of players start getting taken care of in terms of having salaries from their organizations that sponsor them. We ll also see a lot more big corporations coming in to sponsor the players. The opportunities are just starting to get to a point where a lot of these pro players can actually make a decent living doing this all the way down the board. In the past, it might have just been the Top 10 guys that were marketable. You re going to start seeing everybody benefit as a pro player if you re qualified with an MLG role.
I know a few of the guys have busted six figures and that s happened quite a few times in the past. It just depends on how many sponsors you can get behind you, how much promotion that you can give to the sponsors, and how much viewership you have around your own brand as a player. A lot of the guys are at the top of their game, he added. I would say a lot of those guys could make anywhere between $30,000 and $150,000. It just depends on the player and how motivated they are on promoting their own brand and how interactive they are with the community.
I think that the sport s growing so fast that we aren t going to be limited to game companies and headset manufacturers and controller makers as sponsors of players and teams. Soon we re going to see these large corporations that have products that have nothing to do with gaming, but they want to market by demographic, coming on board. The doors are about to open wide for sponsorships for anything from mobile phone carriers to big brands. It could be anything and everything any kind of sports marketing that s been done in the past with professional sports, you re about to see that in gaming, he concluded.
Source: Forbes
