How Latin American esports is poised for growth

Posted byby Dean Takahashi
October 6, 2019
Updated June 20, 2025
11 min

Esports is going to be a global phenomenon, but most of the attention has focused on North America and Asia. Turns out the rest of the world is in love with multiplayer gaming competitions as well.

To get a feel for the regional markets, I spoke with Juan Carlos Cortizo, the CEO of Pro Play Esports (it’s based in Mexico City). He believes that mobile gaming will be the primary platform for esports in Latin America, and that 5G will be a game-changer when it arrives.

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Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.