“That Looks Like a UFC Event” – Joe Rogan Once Got Astonished By The Size Of $24 Million eSports Event Audience

Joe Rogan is a very serious podcaster and is very practical about his approach to video games since he finds them harmful because of their “addictive” nature. Although he might have his personal takes on such debates which the entire world is currently fighting on, one thing that he did approve of is that the fanbase of eSports is really big and seems endless.

This was also seen 3 years ago, when during a podcast with VR pioneer John Carmack, he came across the fact that the fanbase for eSports, especially for DOTA 2, is similar to that of UFC. And this also raises the fact that eSports has seen the same growth that other sports and tournaments see each year in terms of numbers.

When UFC commentator Joe Rogan was shocked after seeing the number of fans at an eSports event

In one of the 2019 podcasts with VR pioneer and computer programmer John Carmack, UFC commentator Joe Rogan said that the fact that people are interested in watching someone play video games really fascinated him. He even asked Carmack how would he react to the fact that gaming is a relatively new sport. However, 10-15 years ago parents would have called this “nonsense”.

To which Jack replied, “Along with, especially League of Legends even beyond that, is not as popular in the United States but is just amazing overseas, where they like if you look at the numbers for things people think, ‘Oh the Superbowl. Like the height of all competitive sports, whatever.’ And they a lot of these eSports games especially in South Korea are they dwarf those numbers.”

Thus when the modder of the podcast brought out images of the $24 million pool prize eSports event, The International (DOTA 2, 2017), Joe Rogan was surprised and said, “oh my God look at this arena, that looks like 30,000 people. That looks like a UFC event.” 

What does this mean today?

After the Covid-19 pandemic, the eSports world was shaken to the core as the growth suddenly dropped to a minimum for almost every sport. But the pandemic also brought up some new faces to the eSports circle and thus gave hope that the genre might see another boom in the near future.

Thus, when someone like Joe Rogan gets surprised by the number of fans for eSports, it shows that the events held for gamers are nothing short of a good UFC match.

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What do you think about the rising popularity of eSports in the US? Let us know in the comments below.