The client requested JEME’s advice to estimate the size of the eSports market in Italy.

In particular, the team was engaged in a market analysis and, subsequently, the financial profile of costs and revenues for three types of events that the client intended to organize.

Initial situation

eSports are the protagonists of a dizzying growth process both in terms of market volume and media coverage.

In 2018, the year preceding that of the project, investments exceeded 4 billion dollars and the total estimate of fans globally stood at 380 million people.

Despite the enormous business potential, the industry still does not receive the attention it deserves in Italy and two years ago it was even less known; the analyses were therefore extremely stimulating for JEME.

JEME’s contribution

• The team managed to complete the job in just 21 days, relying on great efficiency and wise allocation of resources: a PM assisted by 5 consultants.
• The first macro-phase of market analysis was, as always, declined in the study of supply and demand.
• The analysis of the demand, after a brief digression on the eSports panorama in the most interesting countries, traced, through the consultation of secondary sources, the preferences of national consumers, outlining the size of the market, the tastes and the most important titles, the demographic and interest characteristics of the catchment area. Consumer preferences with respect to the types of events (physical or online) and the willingness to participate in amateur tournaments were also studied.
• The analysis of the offer initially took into consideration the main competitors within the Italian market, and then broadened the spectrum of research across the world. The main realities operating in the market were investigated through case studies, analyzing their business model. Given the emerging nature of the issue in Italy and the lack of data on the subject, the opinion of experts in the sector was requested to identify the main players and better understand the Italian dynamics. Thanks to a comparative analysis with the literature of more mature markets, it was possible to understand at what evolutionary stage Italy was and, based on the data that emerged from these researches and on the peculiarities of Italian demand investigated in the analysis of the demand, projections were drawn about the possible evolution of the industry and the emergence of the most successful factors for the national market.
• The second macro-phase, of financial analysis, outlined the main sources of revenue and cost for the three types of events of interest to the customer.
• The study was conducted thanks to the profiling of various numbers and probabilistic scenarios in terms of revenues & costs, to help the customer outline his own strategy.

JEME’s impact

Despite the obvious gap between Italy and more mature and avant-garde market realities, the team was able to successfully conclude the advice to the client in particularly short times.

The result has brought considerable added value to the customer and constitutes one of the most updated and valuable analytical sources in the national literature on the subject.