Cancellations and postponements throughout 2020 were a common change for many major sporting events including the growing world of esports, and with the start of 2021 shaping up to look similar for some many fans are looking to the next few weeks to see what favourites may be missing in the early line-up. Fortunately, however, it seems that esports is largely remaining immune in some instances once again as big esports get off to an early start in 2021 and look to continue remaining strong throughout the year.
League of Legends – The big regions for League of Legends were all scheduled to get started in the middle to the end of January, and some have already got underway. There have been big changes to the 2021 season in some regions too, an earlier event kicks off the NA regular season a little earlier than usual and changes in the scheduling for the Spring and Summer splits will mean that games will take place at a slightly different time, although there will be the same number of games. These changes will also make the season much more impactful as there have been concerns that the spring split especially was less valuable, but now with all games having an impact on the final standings it will lead to a very exciting season.
(Image from dknation.draftkings.com)
Counter-Strike – The king of FPS games is also looking to get started after a thrilling end to the last year – although we missed out on a major, the final IEM event of the year showed Astralis coming back to form. The first major of the year returns as IEM Katowice 2021 is set to have some changes, notably that no fans will be in attendance and a shift to online may be required, but the team line-up is looking very strong and will be a great event, with newer viewers tuning in too and increasing interest to bet on IEM Katowice. As the first big event of the year too there are always possibilities for upsets, players returning from player breaks and switch ups in rosters can change the outlook dramatically for some and brings a great event to the start of the esports calendar.
DotA2 – Of the big three titles, DotA is the only title looking a little rocky at the moment. The International was able to break records hitting $40million for the 2020 prize pool, but ultimately had to be cancelled due to the ongoing pandemic. Whilst the 2021 International is scheduled for a little later in the year there are of course still further risks it may be cancelled again but given the opportunity to raise yet more money it could continue to break records for prize pool funding as the crowdsourced approach has been very successful.
Esports as a whole is in the best spot it has ever been in and looks to only continue growing, and disruptions to regular traditional sporting will only push numbers higher too as gaming is certainly looking to be a future big name in sporting.
