More video viewers turn to ad-supported video-on-demand (AVOD) and free streaming options.

Esports received heightened media attention during the onset of the coronavirus pandemic. While the publicity helped bring awareness to the growing industry, the pandemic will not have a significant impact on annual esports viewership or advertising revenues in the US.

Esports viewership has not caught up to the media hype – but there could be upcoming growth opportunities.

Digital gaming and viewership of gaming video content (GVC) has become more popular amid the pandemic. In 2021, some of this activity will see modest growth, while interest in other forms of gaming will taper off.

We forecast that 37.5 million people in the US will watch streaming video on Twitch at least monthly in 2020, meaning the video streaming platform will reach 15.5% of US digital video viewers this year. At its current pace, Twitch will surpass 40 million US users by the end of 2021, according to our first ever forecast for the platform.

The large increase in live video viewers is one of the biggest digital media growth stories of the pandemic.

One streamer in particular, left-wing commentator Hasan Piker, is among the most popular on the platform, regularly pulling in viewers in the tens of thousands. One of Piker’s streams Wednesday covering the Ukraine conflict has over 1.7 million views at the time of writing.