Technology

How Do Esports Companies Compare with Sports Teams?

Published

12 months ago

January 29, 2021

Omri Wallach

Graphics/Design:

Clayton Wadsworth

Esports Companies VS Sports

Can I share this graphic?
Yes. Visualizations are free to share and post in their original form across the web—even for publishers. Please link back to this page and attribute Visual Capitalist.

When do I need a license?
Licenses are required for some commercial uses, translations, or layout modifications. You can even whitelabel our visualizations. Explore your options.

Interested in this piece?
Click here to license this visualization.

How Do Esports Companies Compare with Sports Teams?

Are esports on the same level as “real” sports? These comparisons range from tricky to subjective, but the monetary value of companies speak for themselves.

The world’s largest esports companies have definitely risen to the occasion. Valued at almost half-a-billion dollars, they’ve started to pass some sports franchises in value.

In the above graphic, we compare Forbes’ valuation of the top 10 esports companies in 2020 against median franchises in the “Big Four” major leagues (NFL, MLB, NBA, and NHL). Despite competitive gaming’s rapid growth, there’s still a long way left to go.

Esports Impress but NFL Teams Reign Supreme

The world’s top esports companies have grown quickly, and impressively.

As of 2018, there was only one esports company worth more than $300 million in valuation. By 2020, four of the top 10 were valued at more than $300 million.

Esports Company	Games with Franchises	Value (2020)
TSM	League of Legends	$410M
Cloud9	League of Legends, Overwatch	$350M
Team Liquid	League of Legends	$310M
FaZe Clan	Call of Duty	$305M
100 Thieves	League of Legends, Call of Duty	$190M
Gen.G	League of Legends, Overwatch, NBA 2K	$185M
Enthusiast Gaming	Call of Duty, Overwatch	$180M
G2 Esports	League of Legends	$175M
NRG Esports	Call of Duty, Overwatch	$155M
T1	League of Legends	$150M

When compared to traditional sports valuations, esports companies have already reached major league hockey status.

TSM, the world’s most valuable esports company in 2020, has a higher valuation than five NHL franchises. In fact, four esports companies were estimated to be more valuable than two NHL franchises, the Florida Panthers and Arizona Coyotes.

But other sports leagues are further away. While the median value of an NHL franchise in 2020 was $520 million, the MLB, NBA, and NFL all saw median values of over $1.6 billion.

Esports vs. Sports Franchises	Lowest Valued Team	Highest Valued Team	Median
NFL	$2.0B	$5.7B	$3.0B
NBA	$1.3B	$4.6B	$1.8B
MLB	$980M	$5.0B	$1.6B
NHL	$285M	$1.6B	$520M
Esports (Top 10)	$150M	$410M	$188M

Differences in Esports vs Sports Structures and Growth

Try as we might to make a clean apples-to-apples comparison between esports and traditional sports teams, there are significant differences in the business models to consider.

For starters, major esports companies own multiple franchises and non-franchise teams across many games. Cloud9 owns both the eponymous Cloud9 League of Legends franchise and the London Spitfire Overwatch franchise, for example, as well as non-franchise teams in Halo, Counter Strike: Global Offensive, Fortnite, and other games.

The revenue streams for esports companies are also extremely varied. Companies like TSM, 100 Thieves, FaZe Clan and Enthusiast Gaming made 50% or more of their revenue from outside of esports, having instead expanded into diverse companies with an equal focus on content creation and apps.

But it’s this greater ability to diversify, and the still-increasing size of esports fandom, that continues to grow esports valuations. In fact, TSM’s estimated 2020 revenue of $45 million is less than half of the Arizona Coyotes’ estimated revenue of $95 million, despite a $100+ million valuation difference in favor of TSM.

That’s why the continued maturation of esports is only going to make traditional sports comparisons easier, and closer. Instead of having to pit companies against franchises, direct league-to-league comparisons will be possible, and the differences will likely shrink from billions to millions.

Up Next

The Crazy World of Stonks Explained

Don't Miss

Global Stars: The Most Innovative Countries, Ranked by Income Group

Click for Comments

Technology

Apple’s Colossal Market Cap as it Hits $3 Trillion

Apple’s market cap recently hit $3 trillion. To put that scale into context, this visualization compares Apple to European indexes.

Creator Program

Published

6 days ago

January 10, 2022

Nick Routley

Apple’s Colossal Market Cap in Context

In January of 2019, Apple’s market capitalization stood at $700 billion.

While this was perceived as a colossal figure at the time, when we fast forward to today, that valuation seems a lot more modest. Since then, Apple has surged to touch a $3 trillion valuation on January 3rd, 2022.

To gauge just how monstrous of a figure this is, consider that Apple is no longer comparable to just companies, but to countries and even entire stock indexes. This animation from James Eagle ranks the growth in Apple’s market cap alongside top indexes from the UK, France, and Germany.

Let’s take a closer look.

Apple Takes On Europe

The three indexes Apple is compared to are heavyweights in their own right.

The FTSE 100 consists of giants like HSBC and vaccine producer AstraZeneca, while the CAC 40 Index is home to LVMH, which made Bernard Arnault the richest man in the world for a period of time last year.

Nonetheless, Apple’s market cap exceeds that of the 100 companies in the FTSE, as well as the 40 in each of the CAC and DAX indexes.

Stock/Index	Market Cap ($T)	Country of Origin
Apple	$3.00T	🇺🇸
FTSE 100	$2.90T	🇬🇧
CAC 40 Index	$2.76T	🇫🇷
DAX 40 (Dax 30) Index*	$2.50T	🇩🇪

*Germany’s flagship DAX Index expanded from 30 to 40 constituents in September 2021.

It’s important to note, that while Apple’s growth is stellar, European companies have simultaneously seen a decline in their share of the overall global stock market, which helps make these comparisons even more eye-catching.

For example, before 2005, publicly-traded European companies represented almost 30% of global stock market capitalization, but those figures have been cut in half to just 15% today.

Here are some other approaches to measure Apple’s dominance.

Apple’s Revenue Per Minute vs Other Tech Giants

Stepping away from market capitalization, another unique way to measure Apple’s success is in how much sales they generate on a per minute basis. In doing so, we see that they generate a massive $848,090 per minute.

Here’s how Apple revenue per minute compares to other Big Tech giants:

Company	Revenue Per Minute
Amazon	$955,517
Apple	$848,090
Alphabet (Google)	$433,014
Microsoft	$327,823
Facebook	$213,628
Tesla	$81,766
Netflix	$50,566

Furthermore, Apple’s profits aren’t too shabby either: their $20.5 billion in net income last quarter equates to $156,000 in profits per minute.

How Apple Compares To Countries

Lastly, we can compare Apple’s market cap to the GDP of countries.

Country (excluding Apple)	Total Value ($T)
Apple	$3.0T
Italy	$2.0T
Brazil	$1.8T
Canada	$1.7T
Russia	$1.7T
South Korea	$1.6T
Australia	$1.4T
Spain	$1.4T
Mexico	$1.3T
Indonesia	$1.1T

What might be most impressive here is that Apple’s market cap eclipses the GDP of major developed economies, such as Canada and Australia. That means the company is more valuable than the entire economic production of these countries in a calendar year.

That’s some serious scale.

Technology

Companies Gone Public in 2021: Visualizing IPO Valuations

Tracking the companies that have gone public in 2021, their valuation, and how they did it.

Published

1 week ago

January 7, 2022

Omri Wallach

Companies Gone Public in 2021: Visualizing Valuations

Despite its many tumultuous turns, last year was a productive year for global markets, and companies going public in 2021 benefited.

From much-hyped tech initial public offerings (IPOs) to food and healthcare services, many companies with already large followings have gone public this year. Some were supposed to go public in 2020 but got delayed due to the pandemic, and others saw the opportunity to take advantage of a strong current market.

This graphic measures 68 companies that have gone public in 2021 — including IPOs, SPACs, and Direct Listings—as well as their subsequent valuations after listing.

Who’s Gone Public in 2021?

Historically, companies that wanted to go public employed one main method above others: the initial public offering (IPO).

But companies going public today readily choose from one of three different options, depending on market situations, associated costs, and shareholder preference:

Initial Public Offering (IPO): A private company creates new shares which are underwritten by a financial organization and sold to the public.
Special Purpose Acquisition Company (SPAC): A separate company with no operations is created strictly to raise capital to acquire the company going public. SPACs are the fastest method of going public, and have become popular in recent years.
Direct Listing: A private company enters a market with only existing, outstanding shares being traded and no new shares created. The cost is lower than that of an IPO, since no fees need to be paid for underwriting.

The majority of companies going public in 2021 chose the IPO route, but some of the biggest valuations resulted from direct listings.

Listing Date	Company	Valuation ($B)	Listing Type
08-Jan-21	Clover Health	$7.0	SPAC
13-Jan-21	Affirm	$11.9	IPO
13-Jan-21	Billtrust	$1.3	SPAC
14-Jan-21	Poshmark	$3.0	IPO
15-Jan-21	Playtika	$11.0	IPO
21-Jan-21	Hims and Hers Health	$1.6	SPAC
28-Jan-21	Qualtrics	$15.0	IPO
09-Feb-21	Metromile	-	SPAC
11-Feb-21	Bumble	$8.2	IPO
26-Feb-21	ChargePoint Holdings	-	SPAC
03-Mar-21	Oscar Health	$7.9	IPO
10-Mar-21	Roblox	$30.0	Direct Listing
11-Mar-21	Coupang	$60.0	IPO
23-Mar-21	DigitalOcean	$5.0	IPO
25-Mar-21	VIZIO	$3.9	IPO
26-Mar-21	ThredUp	$1.3	IPO
31-Mar-21	Coursera	$4.3	IPO
01-Apr-21	Compass	$8.0	IPO
14-Apr-21	Coinbase	$86.0	Direct Listing
15-Apr-21	AppLovin	$28.6	IPO
21-Apr-21	UiPath	$35.0	IPO
21-Apr-21	DoubleVerify	$4.2	IPO
05-May-21	The Honest Company	$1.4	IPO
07-May-21	Lightning eMotors	$0.82	SPAC
07-May-21	Blade Air Mobility	$0.83	SPAC
19-May-21	Squarespace	$7.4	Direct Listing
19-May-21	Procore	$9.6	IPO
19-May-21	Oatly	$10.0	IPO
26-May-21	ZipRecruiter	$2.4	Direct Listing
26-May-21	FIGS	$4.4	IPO
01-Jun-21	SoFi	$8.7	SPAC
02-Jun-21	BarkBox	$1.6	SPAC
08-Jun-21	Marqueta	$15.0	IPO
10-Jun-21	Monday.com	$7.5	IPO
16-Jun-21	WalkMe	$2.5	IPO
22-Jun-21	Sprinklr	$3.7	IPO
24-Jun-21	Confluent	$9.1	IPO
29-Jun-21	Clear	$4.5	IPO
30-Jun-21	SentinelOne	$10.0	IPO
30-Jun-21	LegalZoom	$7.0	IPO
30-Jun-21	Didi Chuxing	$73.0	IPO
16-Jul-21	Blend	$4	IPO
21-Jul-21	Kaltura	$1.24	IPO
21-Jul-21	DISCO	$2.5	IPO
21-Jul-21	Couchbase	$1.4	IPO
23-Jul-21	Vtex	$3.5	IPO
23-Jul-21	Outbrain	$1.1	IPO
28-Jul-21	Duolingo	$3.7	IPO
28-Jul-21	Riskified	$3.3	IPO
29-Jul-21	Robinhood	$32.0	IPO
22-Sep-21	Toast	$22.0	IPO
22-Sep-21	Freshworks	$10.1	IPO
23-Sep-21	Remitly	$6.9	IPO
28-Sep-21	Amplitude	$6.4	Direct Listing
29-Sep-21	Warby Parker	$6.0	Direct Listing
14-Oct-21	GitLab	$11.0	IPO
27-Oct-21	Rent the Runway	$1.7	IPO
29-Oct-21	Udemy	$4.0	IPO
03-Nov-21	Allbirds	$2.2	IPO
04-Nov-21	NerdWallet	$1.2	IPO
10-Nov-21	Rivian	$66.5	IPO
10-Nov-21	Expensify	$2.2	IPO
11-Nov-21	Winc	-	IPO
11-Nov-21	Weave	-	IPO
17-Nov-21	UserTesting	-	IPO
17-Nov-21	Braze	$6.0	IPO
18-Nov-21	Sweetgreen	$3.0	IPO
09-Dec-21	Nubank	$41.0	IPO

Though there are many well-known names in the list, one of the biggest through lines continues to be the importance of tech.

A majority of 2021’s newly public companies have been in tech, including multiple mobile apps, websites, and online services. The two biggest IPOs so far were South Korea’s Coupang, an online marketplace valued at $60 billion after going public, and China’s ride-hailing app Didi Chuxing, the year’s largest post-IPO valuation at $73 billion.

And there were many apps and services going public through other means as well. Gaming company Roblox went public through a direct listing, earning a valuation of $30 billion, and cryptocurrency platform Coinbase has earned the year’s largest valuation so far, with an $86 billion valuation following its direct listing.

Big Companies Going Public in 2022

As with every year, some of the biggest companies going public were lined up for the later half.

Tech will continue to be the talk of the markets. Payment processing firm Stripe was setting up to be the year’s biggest IPO with an estimated valuation of $95 billion, but got delayed. Likewise, online grocery delivery platform InstaCart, which saw a big upswing in traction due to the pandemic, has been looking to go public at a valuation of at least $39 billion.

Of course, it’s common that potential public listings and offerings fall through. Whether they get delayed due to weak market conditions or cancelled at the last minute, anything can happen when it comes to public markets.

This post has been updated as of January 1, 2022.