Esports Manager

Esports managers run the business side of competitive gaming: managing teams and players, organizing tournaments, and selling sponsorships and media deals. A lot of the day-to-day work is scheduling, social media, sponsor reports and audience numbers, the kind of office work AI tools already help with. But no independent study measures AI's effect on this job, and the government has no job code for it, so the AI part of this score is our judgment.

The bigger risk is the industry itself. After a boom during the pandemic, esports went through what the trade press called an "esports winter" in 2023 and 2024. Esports Insider tracked the layoffs: Riot Games cut about 530 roles in early 2024, including esports staff; ESL FACEIT Group, one of the biggest tournament companies, cut about 15% of its employees; and after Microsoft's cuts, some outlets reported only a handful of people left in its esports department. Much of the new money comes from Saudi Arabia. Its Public Investment Fund set aside $38 billion for gaming and esports, and the 2025 Esports World Cup in Riyadh offered $70 million in prize money. That makes this a small job market that depends on a few big funders.

We keep this at 3: AI can take routine coordination and marketing work in a field with little room to absorb it. Our evidence here is thin and mostly from 2024, and we plan to revisit it. What would change this score. If esports companies start replacing coordinators and social media staff with AI tools, this goes to 4. If the industry grows steadily and hires more people for events and partnerships, it could come down to 2.