VanEck has filed a registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission for an exchange-traded fund that would invest in companies involved in video gaming and eSports, otherwise known as electronic sports.
The VanEck Vectors Video Gaming and eSports ETF would follow the MVIS Global Video Gaming and eSports Index. MVIS indexes are developed by MV Index Solutions, which is the index business of investment management firm VanEck, the provider of the VanEck Vectors ETFs.
The fund would invest in companies that generate at least 50 percent of their revenue from video gaming and/or eSports. That could include developers of video games and related software, as well as companies that offer streaming services and are involved in eSports events. eSports has become a big growth engine for the video game industry.
According to a report earlier this year from Newzoo, a company that tracks the eSports and gaming industries, the global eSports business is expected to grow 38 percent this year, to more than $905 million.
Roughly three-quarters of that would come from sponsorships, advertising, media rights and content licenses. The rest would come from consumer spending on tickets and merchandise, along with money invested by game publishers into the eSports industry through partnership deals with white-label organizers.
Newzoo forecasts global eSports viewership will reach 380 million this year.
If approved, this VanEck fund wouldn’t be the first ETF focused on video games. The ETFMG Video Game Tech ETF (GAMR) has attracted roughly $142 million in assets since it debuted in March 2016, according to XTF.com The fund tracks the EEFund Video Game Tech Index, and charges a net expense ratio of 0.75 percent.
Its share price has more than doubled since inception.