Players age. Player Peak Ages in Football: Analyzing Performance Across Positions

At what age do footballers reach their performance peak. How does peak age vary by position on the field. Which positions allow for longer careers in professional football. What factors influence a player’s peak age and career longevity.

The Importance of Age in Football Performance

In the world of football, a player’s age is far more than just a number. It’s a critical factor that can significantly influence their performance, career trajectory, and value to a team. The concept of a “peak” age in football – the point at which a player reaches the pinnacle of their abilities – has long been a topic of interest for fans, coaches, and analysts alike.

Understanding when players in different positions reach their peak is crucial for various aspects of the game, including player development, transfer strategies, and team composition. However, pinpointing exact peak ages isn’t a straightforward task, as players develop at different rates and various factors can influence their career trajectories.

Measuring Player Performance: Challenges and Metrics

One of the primary challenges in determining peak ages in football is finding an appropriate metric to measure player performance. Unlike sports such as baseball or basketball, which have well-established metrics like Wins Above Replacement (WAR) or Value Over Replacement Player (VORP), football lacks a single, comprehensive statistic that can be applied across all positions.

The fluid nature of football and the highly specific roles within each position make it difficult to use a one-size-fits-all approach to performance measurement. For instance, while goals or expected goals per 90 minutes might be suitable for evaluating strikers, these metrics would be inappropriate for assessing the performance of defenders or goalkeepers.

Position-Specific Metrics

To gain insights into how performance changes with age across different positions, analysts often turn to position-specific metrics. For example, when examining wingers in the Premier League, the number of take-ons per 90 minutes can provide valuable information about how playing style evolves with age.

Data shows that younger wingers in their teens and early 20s tend to attempt more dribbles past defenders, showcasing their explosiveness and energy. However, as wingers age and potentially lose some of their pace, their tendency to take on defenders directly decreases. This shift often necessitates a change in playing style as they enter their early 30s, with less emphasis on one-on-one situations.

The Limitations of Specialized Metrics

While position-specific metrics offer valuable insights, they don’t provide a complete picture of a player’s overall effectiveness. These statistics typically focus on particular aspects of performance rather than offering a comprehensive evaluation of a player’s contribution to the team.

More advanced metrics like Expected Threat (xT) attempt to quantify a player’s overall impact by measuring how their actions increase their team’s chances of scoring. However, even these sophisticated models have limitations, as they primarily focus on on-ball actions and often neglect defensive contributions.

Minutes Played: A Universal Indicator of Performance

Given the challenges in finding a single, all-encompassing metric for football performance, many analysts turn to a simpler but highly effective measure: minutes played. This statistic offers several advantages when examining the relationship between age and performance across different positions.

Why Minutes Played Matters

• Durability Factor: As players age, their ability to withstand the physical demands of professional football becomes increasingly important. Minutes played inherently captures this aspect of performance, as it reflects not just skill but also fitness and resilience.
• Implicit Quality Indicator: While managers consider various factors when selecting their lineups, they generally aim to field their best players to win matches. Therefore, a player’s consistent presence on the pitch is often a testament to their quality and value to the team.
• Data Availability: Minutes played data is widely available for multiple seasons across various leagues, providing a robust dataset for analysis. This accessibility allows for more comprehensive studies of age-related trends in football.

Analyzing Peak Ages Across Positions

By examining minutes played data from the Premier League over the past decade, researchers have been able to identify patterns in peak ages for different positions. This analysis takes into account both starting minutes and substitute appearances, providing a comprehensive view of player utilization across age ranges.

Key Findings on Peak Ages

1. Goalkeepers: Tend to peak later, often in their late 20s or early 30s, and can maintain high performance levels for longer periods.
2. Central Defenders: Generally reach their peak in their mid to late 20s, with many continuing to perform at a high level into their early 30s.
3. Full-backs: Often peak earlier than central defenders, typically in their mid-20s, due to the position’s physical demands.
4. Midfielders: Peak ages can vary depending on the specific role, with defensive midfielders often peaking later than their more attack-minded counterparts.
5. Wingers: Typically reach their peak in their mid-20s, with a notable decline in playing time as they enter their 30s.
6. Strikers: Often peak in their mid to late 20s, though some may maintain high performance levels into their early 30s.

Factors Influencing Peak Age and Career Longevity

While the analysis of minutes played provides valuable insights into general trends, it’s important to recognize that numerous factors can influence an individual player’s peak age and overall career trajectory.

Physical Attributes and Playing Style

Players who rely heavily on pace and explosiveness may experience earlier declines in performance as these attributes naturally diminish with age. Conversely, players whose game is built more on technique, vision, and tactical understanding may be able to maintain high performance levels for longer periods.

Injury History

A player’s injury record can significantly impact their peak age and career longevity. Those who suffer major injuries or accumulate numerous minor injuries throughout their career may experience earlier declines in performance or struggle to maintain consistent playing time.

Positional Adaptability

Players who can adapt their playing style or position as they age often enjoy longer careers at the highest level. For example, a winger who loses some pace might successfully transition to a more central role, leveraging their experience and technical skills.

Advances in Sports Science and Medicine

Ongoing developments in training methods, nutrition, and medical treatments are helping players maintain peak fitness levels for longer periods. This trend may gradually shift peak ages across all positions in the coming years.

Implications for Player Development and Recruitment

Understanding peak ages and performance trends across different positions has significant implications for various aspects of football management and strategy.

Youth Development

Clubs can use insights about peak ages to inform their youth development programs, ensuring that young players are given appropriate opportunities to gain experience before reaching their theoretical peak years.

Transfer Strategies

Knowledge of peak ages can influence transfer decisions, helping clubs determine the optimal time to buy or sell players based on their age and position. This understanding can be particularly valuable when assessing the potential long-term value of a transfer.

Contract Management

Clubs can use peak age data to inform contract negotiations, potentially offering longer contracts to players in positions known for later peaks or longer career spans, while being more cautious with positions that typically see earlier declines.

The Future of Age Analysis in Football

As data analysis in football continues to evolve, our understanding of peak ages and performance trends is likely to become more nuanced and precise. Advancements in tracking technology and performance metrics may soon provide even more detailed insights into how age affects specific aspects of a player’s game.

Personalized Peak Age Predictions

Future research may focus on developing models that can predict individual players’ peak ages based on a combination of physical attributes, playing style, and performance data. This could allow for more tailored approaches to player development and career management.

Integration with Tactical Analysis

As our understanding of peak ages improves, this knowledge may be increasingly integrated with tactical analysis. Managers and analysts could use this information to optimize team compositions and playing styles based on the age profiles of their squad.

In conclusion, while the concept of peak age in football is complex and multifaceted, ongoing research and data analysis continue to provide valuable insights into how player performance evolves across different positions. By leveraging this knowledge, clubs, coaches, and players themselves can make more informed decisions to maximize performance and career longevity in the beautiful game.

What age do players in different positions peak?

They say that age is just a number, but in football, that number is extremely important.

The notion of a “peak” player age — the time at which they are at the very best of their abilities — isn’t an overly new concept. Most fans recognise when players are raw, great or past it. Putting a number against that, however, isn’t overly straightforward.

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For example, how do you find out when the peak happens? And don’t players develop at different rates, with some being early starters and others being late bloomers? Do players in different positions peak at different points?

It’s all a bit of a headache, but here The Athletic dives into the science of player ages, considering how to measure them and what they are.

To get an understanding of how player age impacts performances, it’s important to first decide on a good metric to incapsulate performance in the first place.

This is a far easier task in other sports — particularly baseball and basketball — that have better, publicly available top-down metrics that can give an overarching notion of a player’s impact on his team’s ability to win. Metrics such as Wins Above Replacement in baseball or Value Over Replacement Player in basketball have their flaws, but mapping player ability by these metrics across the years can show the impact of age on performance.

In football, it’s not as straightforward. For a start, the games are more fluid and the roles on the pitch are highly specific, even getting to the point when players that are playing in a given position do not play like someone who would traditionally play in that position at all (yes, I’m looking at you, Joao Cancelo).

Due to that positional variability, there’s not a single figure to explain performance for every role and position on the pitch in the same currency. Goals or expected goals per 90 are perhaps ideal stats to use to measure strikers, but that’s a poor stat to use for, say, centre-backs.

Different metrics could be considered per position to get an overall understanding of how things change from a stylistic point of view, however. For example, here’s how many take-ons per 90 wingers average at different ages in the Premier League, inspired by previous work done by Colin Trainor.

Notably, as wingers age and lose their explosiveness, their tendency to take on defenders plummets. The young, high-energy players in their teens and early 20s are keen to dribble past as many players as possible, but their roles have to change a lot in their early 30s as they offer less of a direct one-on-one threat.

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But metrics such as those don’t give a good indication of a player’s general effectiveness. They only offer an insight into how much (or little) of a given action they did on the field at a given age.

Expected threat — and similar models that indicate how a player’s actions increase their team’s chances of scoring — might be a good alternative to use as it offers a common measure of value added across positions. Sadly, though, these possession value-type models only cater to the on-ball abilities of players, completely ignoring the defensive aspects of their performances.

The solution, then, isn’t some fancy all-encompassing metric that tries to look at a player’s true value on the pitch. Such a model doesn’t exist, at least in the public sphere, and likely won’t for many years. No, the best stat to use here is just plain, basic minutes played.

There are several reasons for that. For a start, part of the impact of ageing on players isn’t just that their abilities drop off, but also that their bodies become less and less durable. It is a cliche, but the best ability is availability, and that’s a big factor when it comes to rating a player’s ability at any age.

Second, there is some implicit notion of a player’s quality captured in their minutes played. Managers pick their teams for many different reasons — form, injuries, suspension, player preference, tactics — but more often than not, they’ll want to play their best players to win a game. The mere presence of a player on the pitch, therefore, says something about how good they are.

Finally, it’s also something that is fairly accessible for the past few seasons in the Premier League, and to calculate anything to do with peak ages and age curves, plenty of data is required.

So in terms of minutes played, when do players look to peak? The chart below — inspired by the original work of Michael Caley — looks to answer that.

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Both starts and substitute minutes are taken into account here from Premier League matches over the past decade, with the player ages on August 1 of every season taken into account. Players are split into one of seven different positional groups depending on where they featured in games.

The graphic below maps all ages between 18 and 38 years old, broken down by position. The colours on each scale denote the share of the total minutes played for each age, over the past 10 Premier League seasons.

The redder that the age is shaded, the higher the share of total minutes played for that age within their position. 

Goalkeepers are the oldest positional group, with the latest peak age and plenty of players playing well into their early 30s too, as denoted by the lighter shading. It’s a position in which fewer opportunities are given to younger players, and experience seems to be prioritised over younger, fitter goalkeepers.

Centre-backs also peak relatively late, at around 27, with plenty of players featuring heavily in their late 20s and early 30s. As with goalkeepers, the nature of the role isn’t as comparatively physically demanding in terms of needing to hit top speeds or cover great distances. However, a player’s ability to read the game will improve with time, sometimes making up for the speed lost in a player’s later years.

On the other hand, full-backs peak far younger, with the majority of their minutes coming at 25. What’s interesting with full-backs — and deserving of an article in itself — is how the increasingly demanding nature of the role has impacted the age curve at the position. Full-backs are now asked to get up and down the pitch far more. They also need to be technically gifted and have a high level of tactical understanding. For that reason, they are likely to be one of the most athletic players on the pitch, which explains why fewer minutes are going to players in their late-20s.

It’s a similar story in central midfield, another position that requires plenty of ground to be covered at different speeds. The most common age for a player in this position is around 25, with a fairly large spread of players playing consistently between the ages of 24 and 30.

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As shown in the take-ons example previously, wingers and wide attackers hit their peak earlier, reaching the height of their powers around 26. It makes sense, then, that they see plenty of minutes in their early 20s and fall out of the game or are required to change position to stay in it by the time they hit their 30s.

Central attacking midfielders — or No 10s in non-data-speak — are the least common playing position on the pitch, as fewer teams are playing with a single playmaker these days. There’s a peak for them at age 26, but theirs is a position to take with a pinch of salt.

Due to their relative scarcity in the modern game, there’s something of a sample bias here, with just 1,098 players in the last decade playing in that position in a single season and there only being 55 player records with 1,000 minutes or more. There’s an early spike around 22 years old in the data thanks to this, with Ross Barkley, Christian Eriksen, Oscar and Dele Alli to name just a few all featuring heavily in the Premier League at that age.

Finally, strikers seem to have the most well-defined ageing pattern of all the positions. They rise to prominence in their early 20s and peak around 27, with only the proper outliers able to sustain themselves in the game past their early 30s. Similarly to centre-backs, their feeling of the game increases over time, but they are limited more by the physical drop-off in their late 20s and early 30s.

Taking all of this into account means that a rough band of “peak ages” can be formed for each positional group. This is calculated by taking the peak year and adding and subtracting a year from either side. For goalkeepers, any player aged between 27 and 29 will be considered in their peak. For full-backs and central midfielders, that’s any player aged 24 to 26.

With this data, a more custom squad profile can be built, showing a more appropriate peak age banding. Here’s what that looks like for Arsenal, with them having plenty of pre-peak players across the pitch.

Arsenal are a particularly pertinent team to consider because considering all players who’ve played 400 minutes or more in the league this season, Arsenal’s are on average 1.6 years away from reaching their peak, the lowest of any side in the league and almost double that of Aston Villa’s 0.9 years away from their hypothetical peak. At the other end of the scale are Watford, whose most common starters are 3.0 years beyond their peak on average, most likely dragged up by their veteran 38-year-old goalkeeper Ben Foster.

Over the next 10 days, we will be running individual pieces using the peak age of positions to look at the squad profiles of each Premier League club, and those we cover closely in the English Football League and Scottish Premiership.

(Photos: Getty Images; Design: Tom Slator)

Top 25 NFL players 25 and under: Justin Herbert headlines 2022 stars; four QBs, six WRs make the list

The NFL isn’t always a young man’s game. Take, for example, two of the best quarterbacks still doing it in the NFL: Tom Brady, 44, and Aaron Rodgers, 38, just might be the favorites in the NFC this season, and rightfully so. But that doesn’t mean football is hurting for young talent. Rookies are increasingly expected to contribute early, and a slew of hotshot signal-callers, like recent Super Bowl starters Joe Burrow and Patrick Mahomes, contended for titles on their first contracts.

And that’s just the QBs. Each year at CBS Sports, we rank the top 25 players 25 and under. And this year, in particular, was incredibly difficult. Why? Because the NFL is absolutely loaded with promising young players. That’s one of the reasons we’ve included such an extensive honorable-mention list for 2022; there are too many up-and-comers to properly acknowledge in a list of 25. Still, we’re confident our top pecking order will convey just how many stars of today and tomorrow reside in football.

Before we get to the rundown, some criteria:

• Why is age 25 the cutoff? Generally speaking, most top players enter the NFL at ages 20-21. That means their first contracts tend to run right up until about 25. It doesn’t mean 26-year-old superstars aren’t young, but this gives us an easy dividing line. That way, in many cases, you can view this list as the top players still on their rookie deals (or deserving of new ones).
• What is the cutoff for a player turning 26? We’re counting a player as long as they are 25 or younger when the 2022 season officially begins on Sept. 8. It doesn’t matter if they turn 26 in Week 2; anyone who begins the year 25 or younger is in play.
• Is anyone else excluded from the list? Yes, this year’s rookies. While we could project top picks like Travon Walker and Kayvon Thibodeaux onto the list, our focus is on players who have already established themselves in the NFL, even if for just one season. Hence …
• What goes into the ranking? Both past performance and projection, as well as, to a lesser degree, positional value. So it helps if a player has already been really good for three years, but it also helps if his future outlook is really bright. It also helps if the player is a quarterback rather than running back, for obvious reasons. Try not to get too caught up in whether this ranking indicates where they currently rank or where we think they will rank after 2022; it’s a hodgepodge of where they stand right now and where we think they’re headed.

Without further ado, the ranking:

Carolina’s woes have overshadowed his impact as a sideline-to-sideline playmaker. As a quasi-linebacker/cover man, he’s racked up 224 tackles, 10 QB hits and forced or recovered six fumbles in two years. That’s production you have to game-plan around.

CeeDee Lamb
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Playing in a stacked receivers room alongside Amari Cooper and Michael Gallup, he’s still produced like a star-in-the-making, totaling 2,037 yards and 11 scores in two years. With Cooper gone, he’s poised to see an even bigger share of Dak Prescott’s throws as the explosive counterpart to Gallup and Dalton Schultz.

Is he a perfect linebacker? Surely not, as evidenced by slip-ups in coverage. But you can’t teach speed, and he has it. Over his last two seasons, as a lynchpin of Todd Bowles’ championship defense, he’s been a missile at the heart of their unit, totaling 268 tackles, 12.5 sacks, 34 QB hits and 23 tackles for loss.

Jeffery Simmons
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If you’re looking for the next Aaron Donald or Fletcher Cox, this is probably your guy. Since a quiet rookie year, Simmons has emerged as the superpowered anchor of Tennessee’s feisty front, never more clearly than during the Titans’ mauling of Joe Burrow in the 2021 playoffs. He plays even bigger than he is, and after an 8.5-sack breakout, he’s still got room to grow.

You can see why Panthers fans must be so frustrated about the QB uncertainty; there are promising core pieces ready to help Carolina compete. Burns might be the best, as he’s stayed around the QB ever since his arrival. In three years, he’s logged 25.5 sacks, 55 QB hits and 26 tackles for loss. And he’s not in his prime yet.

He wasn’t nearly as dominant during Cincinnati’s underdog Super Bowl candidacy in 2021, but Bates was one of the most underrated starters at his position for his first three seasons. The total package at the back end, he’s a true deep safety with the athleticism and physicality to offer both pass and run support.

If Bates deserves to reset the safety market, then so does he. The former Dolphins first-rounder set such a high standard as a ballhawk immediately after coming over from Miami that his 2021 numbers (124 tackles, seven pass deflections, two INTs) registered as just OK. He is the perfect modern safety in the way he leverages his athleticism in coverage.

18. Panthers WR D.J. Moore (25)

The Allen Robinson of Carolina, Moore has put up bona fide No. 1 numbers despite erratic QB play. Rightfully rewarded with a new deal this offseason, he’s looking to log a fourth straight season of at least 65 catches, 1,100 yards and four touchdowns.

San Francisco has a history of fostering prototype linebackers, and Warner has fit the bill for some time. As durable as they come, missing just one game in four years, he makes his presence felt all over the field, totaling a whopping 504 tackles since 2018.

Micah Parsons
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Lest we allow recency bias to crown Parsons after one year, it’s hard not to envision the Penn State product headlining Dallas’ defense for a decade-plus. A physical freak whose traits transcend the “linebacker” label, he instantly reshaped the Cowboys’ pass rush with a 13-sack debut and has the upside to mask his defense’s weaknesses.

It didn’t take long for the Northwestern product to shore up Justin Herbert’s blind side in Los Angeles. And there are fewer jobs more important than keeping a franchise QB upright. Slater already has the makings of a perennial All-Pro at left tackle.

The former No. 2 overall pick has “just” nine sacks through two years, but that’s mostly because an ACL tear prematurely ended his sophomore campaign. Like Nick Bosa, he’s got the physical and technical pedigree to be a top-10 edge presence for years.

Maybe it’s the Bears’ recent struggles that have hidden his elite impact at the heart of Chicago’s “D,” but Smith deserves even more recognition than a pair of All-Pro nods. He’s always been a heat-seeking tackling machine, but the last two years, he’s emerged even more as a presence in opposing backfields, totaling 30 tackles for loss since 2020.

He’s the biggest reason the Eagles are actually a good bet to make an NFC East title run now. As long as he and the team monitor his usage, he should be a perfectly imposing No. 1 for Jalen Hurts. The man is big, plays big and, best of all, also plays fast.

DK Metcalf
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He’s just the more physically freakish version of Brown, his fellow 2019 second-rounder. That’s simplifying, of course, but what Metcalf lacks in steady eye-popping numbers he makes up for with raw dominance on jump-ball opportunities. He’s a speed demon with a linebacker’s size, guaranteed to offer big plays as both a deep and red-zone target.

Yes, running backs are more interchangeable than most positions, but in Taylor’s case, the Colts’ offense quite literally runs through him. Not just because they force-feed him, but because he does a ton with the ball in his hands. In two years, he’s racked up 3,639 yards from scrimmage, averaging 5.3 yards per carry, while scoring 32 touchdowns.

Even after missing most of 2021 due to injury, he remains one of the top young cover men in the game. A few more takeaways would elevate him to perennial All-Pro, but he brings an unfazed aggression and physicality to one-on-ones.

Murray’s a bit of a difficult code to crack. On one hand, he’s ended all three NFL seasons either hurt or in a slump, has overseen a combined Cardinals record of 22-23-1 and is all but demanding a new deal before a single promising playoff game in Arizona. On the other, he’s easily a top-10 dual threat when at the height of his game, with a fiery arm and unending elusiveness. Odds are, whether in Arizona or elsewhere, his talent will keep him in the big-game conversation for longer than most QBs.

Redraft the 2020 class, and Wirfs probably isn’t making it out of the top five. Sure, he mans the right side rather than the coveted blind-side spot, but few men have had a more direct hand in Tom Brady’s Tampa Bay resurgence. A premier title-winning pass-blocker who’s still growing, he’s exactly the type of lineman you plug into your lineup expecting 10-plus years of Pro Bowl protection.

6. Bengals WR Ja’Marr Chase (22)

Ja’Marr Chase
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A walking — no, sprinting — highlight reel, Chase couldn’t have had a more promising debut, teaming up with old LSU buddy Joe Burrow to give the Bengals the most dangerous QB-WR pairing this side of Aaron Rodgers and Davante Adams (now defunct). Just get the ball in his hands. That’s the game plan with Chase, who averaged 18 yards per catch as a big-play machine.

5. Vikings WR Justin Jefferson (23)

He laid the groundwork for Chase to exit LSU and enter the NFL as an instant home run threat. The lanky No. 1 is on a Randy Moss pace in Minnesota, serving as a constant outlet for Kirk Cousins and single-handedly spreading out the Vikings’ offense. His team couldn’t have found a better Stefon Diggs successor, adding both swagger and electricity in Jefferson.

4. 49ers DE Nick Bosa (24)

No one moves the needle in the trenches for the front-seven-dependent 49ers more than Bosa, who’s totaled 24.5 sacks in three years despite missing 14 games (!) in 2020. This is just an old-school defensive end with the strength and speed to overmatch everyone in front of him. With 37 tackles for loss and 58 QB hits in his young career, he’s due for a monster deal.

3. Bengals QB Joe Burrow (25)

Joe Cool is everything you want in a franchise QB: prototypical size, championship-level poise, and steady mechanics across the board. Advancing all the way to the Super Bowl in year two confirmed him as top-10 material, even in a stacked AFC, and with an improved line, he should feel even freer to spread the ball from the pocket. The only chief concern, if you’re looking to nitpick, is his long-term durability, considering he’s not a definitively mobile signal-caller and has already had a big knee injury.

If you prefer Burrow here (or higher), we’re not gonna fight you over it. Jackson certainly still has to prove himself as a consistent/big-game passer, especially if his future is tied to a run-heavy system in Baltimore or elsewhere. But there’s just no way most teams wouldn’t love to inject his pure, MVP-level electricity into their lineup. With an underrated arm and lightning-fast speed, he can never be counted out, so long as he’s healthy.

1. Chargers QB Justin Herbert (24)

Justin Herbert
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The crown jewel of a loaded crop of ascending AFC QBs, Herbert is the first player in NFL history to throw 30-plus TDs in each of his first two seasons. And he’s made it look incredibly easy. Funny enough, he hasn’t yet made the playoffs like Burrow or Jackson or even Murray. But he throws the ball better than all but maybe … Rodgers? Brady? If this is his starting point, imagine what his peak could be. L.A. fans should be very grateful to have such a big, joyful, laser-armed face of the franchise.

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Honorable mention

Jaguars RB James Robinson (23), Raiders RB Josh Jacobs (24), Commanders RB Antonio Gibson (24), Eagles RB Miles Sanders (25), Giants RB Saquon Barkley (25), Eagles WR DeVonta Smith (23), Bengals WR Tee Higgins (23), Dolphins WR Jaylen Waddle (23), Lions TE T.J. Hockenson (25), Falcons TE Kyle Pitts (21), Jets OT Mekhi Becton (23), Browns OT Jedrick Wills Jr. (23), Bengals OT Jonah Williams (25), Chiefs C Creed Humphrey (23), Panthers DT Derrick Brown (24), Jets DT Quinnen Williams (24), Raiders DE Maxx Crosby (25), Packers OLB Rashan Gary (24), Jaguars OLB Josh Allen (25), Bills LB Tremaine Edmunds (24), Chiefs LB Nick Bolton (22), Broncos CB Patrick Surtain II (22), Falcons CB A. J. Terrell (23), Cowboys CB Trevon Diggs (23), Buccaneers S Antoine Winfield Jr. (23), Dolphins S Jevon Holland (22), Bengals K Evan McPherson (23)

Maybe next year

Jaguars QB Trevor Lawrence (22), Eagles QB Jalen Hurts (24), Patriots QB Mac Jones (24), 49ers QB Trey Lance (22), Jets QB Zach Wilson (23), Rams RB Cam Akers (23), Lions RB D’Andre Swift (23), Steelers RB Najee Harris (24), Broncos RB Javonte Williams (22), Broncos WR Jerry Jeudy (23), 49ers WR Brandon Aiyuk (24), Steelers WR Chase Claypool (24), Lions WR Amon-Ra St. Brown (22), Bills WR Gabriel Davis (23), Bears WR Darnell Mooney (24), Steelers TE Pat Freiermuth (23), Seahawks TE Noah Fant (24), Lions OT Penei Sewell (21), Colts DE Kwity Paye (23), Dolphins OLB Jaelan Phillips (23), Giants OLB Azeez Ojulari (22), Ravens OLB Odafe Oweh (23), Panthers CB Jaycee Horn (22)

Just too old

Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes (26), Bills QB Josh Allen (26), Browns RB Nick Chubb (26), Panthers RB Christian McCaffrey (26), Buccaneers WR Chris Godwin (26), 49ers WR Deebo Samuel (26), Commanders WR Terry McLaurin (26), Dolphins TE Mike Gesicki (26), Cowboys TE Dalton Schultz (26), Colts OG Quenton Nelson (26), Packers OL Elgton Jenkins (26), Chiefs OT Orlando Brown Jr. (26), Browns DE Myles Garrett (26), Dolphins DT Christian Wilkins (26), Ravens CB Marlon Humphrey (26), Ravens S Marcus Williams (26), Chargers S Derwin James (26)

How old are doters – The average age of Dota 2 players

The average age of dota 2 players from your pubs is 27 years old on average The age of pro players varies from 17 to 32 years The oldest doters in eSports are coaches

ordinary doters and the average age of the Dota 2 pro-scene. Today, doters are not schoolchildren, but fathers of schoolchildren.

Guides statistics players

Alliance.Loda real photo of 2022 without maxi aging

Defense of the Ancients or the first DotA appeared in March 2003 as a map for WarCraft: The Frozen Throne, and today, in 2023, the first dota is 20 years old . Already in December 2005, DotA was quite popular, the official GetDota website was opened, where the latest versions of the map and updates were published, a little later, the leading game studios paid attention to the idea of ​​protecting the ancients.

In September 2009, the developer of the first DotA IceFrog and Valve agree on a joint future and the development of Dota 2 began.0009 in 2023 Dota 2 turns 12 years old . The official release of Dota 2 took place only on July 9, 2013, but by that time, life in the game had been in full swing for a long time and NAVI were already the champions of the first The International.

A new scheme for making money on Dota has been revealed

Over the years, Dota has had ups and downs, in 2023 Dota 2 has more than 81 million users, and about 1 million players play Dota every day. Previously, we published a detailed study of how many dotas are in the world, where we showed online dotas by year and region, and in this article let’s talk about the age of doters . How old are the players from your publics, and how old are the Dota 2 esports players?

The average age of an ordinary doter

Based on age statistics on Steam and polls on cyber forums, we have compiled a graph of the average age of players from your public. In 2023, an ordinary dota player is not yet retired, but the average age in public is 27 years old , players under 20 years old still prevail over the age of 40+ in DotA, but the trend towards aging of players is clearly visible.

Average age in Dota 2 pubs

Speaking of the industry as a whole, the average age of PC game players according to the Global Gaming Awards 2022 is 32, which is higher than the age of doters. In summary, the average gamer today is no longer a young person, but the Dota 2 community remains on average younger than the global gaming community.

As in classical sports, Dota 2 professional performance is the destiny of the young. For analysis, we took all the players of the first division of Winter DPC 2023, these are 6 regions or 48 teams or 240 pro-players. For 2023 The average age of esportsmen in DotA is 24.35 years.

The age of the participants of the first division DPC 2023

Sorted by region, the oldest esports players in Southeast Asia are 25. 05 years old on average, and the youngest pro-players in the CIS are 22.65 years old on average.

The oldest doters in eSports

Historically, the oldest pro-doters occupy coaching positions. Today, Dota 2 veterans train top esports clubs, for example xia8 – PSG.LGD, and Heen – Team Secret.

Coaches are the oldest in Dota 2, photo 2022

Speaking of the oldest players , we are talking only about active players in the pro scene. We have great respect for retired legends like LightOfHeaven or Vigoss, but this article is about active players today.

The oldest pro doters, all photos from 2022

Secret.Puppey, B8.Dendi and HR.Solo continue to be among the oldest players on the pro scene. All of them will turn 33 in 2023.

Kuroky

Kuroky, 30 years old, photo from Nigma 2023 team announcement

The legendary German player, Nigma.Kuroky, has been playing since the first DotA. Kuroky will celebrate his 31st birthday in 2023.

Ceb

Sebastian Ceb Debs, 30 years old, photo from 2022

Two-time The International champion – Ceb, also known as 7ckngMad, continues to play Dota2 under the Old G tag, despite his 30 years.

The youngest pro-players in Dota 2

Speaking about the youngest talents today is wrong, without historical background. In Dota 2 pro-player Suma1l will remain forever young, who has been playing in competitive dota since the age of 15, and at the age of 16 he won The International 2015. In 2023, Sumail turns 24 years old.

The youngest esports players in DotA, photo 2022

There are no such young players left in modern DotA, the minimum age in teams is 17 years old , moreover, BZM and ATF turn 18 years old in 2023, and the CIS player Malr1ne will celebrate 19 years old in 2023 .

Pure

Pure, age 18, photo 2022

A young and promising CIS doter Pure managed to get to The International as a player at the age of 18. Pure is 19 years old in 2023.

depressed kid

depressed kid, 18 years old, photo from 2022

It’s not without reason that our region is considered the youngest in the world – another esportsman from Russia is at the top of the ranking of the youngest doters. HellRaisers player – depressed kid will be 19 years old in 2023.

You don’t need to play gray hair DotA to be successful – 23Savage case. Talon team player 23Savege, at the age of 20, has a top MMR, being the first in the world to break the 13k MMR bar.

Young and old Dota 2 teams

The youngest teams of the first division of Winter DPC 2023 from America – the average age of Evil Geniuses, the new roster with Chris Luck, was 20.7 years, followed by the 5RatForceStaff team, the average age in the team was the same 20.7 years . In CIS , the youngest team is Nemiga Gaming with an average age of 21.1 years. Of the top teams, the youngest today are the guys from Team Spirit.

Team Spirit players age

Player	Age	Date of birth
Yatoro	19 years old	03/12/2003
Larl	20 years old	01/22/2002
Collapse	20 years old	02/25/2002
Mira	23 years old	03. 11.1999
Miposhka	25 years old	11/30/1997
Medium	21.4 years old	–

Age of BetBoom Team players

The status of the oldest team was given to the TSM team, in which the average age of the players was 25.5 years, in second place is the Dendi team – B8 with an indicator of 24. 9 years, the veterans from Nigma close the top three – the average age of the team is 24.5 years.

Age of Tundra Esports players

During its 20 years of existence in DotA, a whole generation has changed, today those children who stood at the origins are already teaching their children to play. In his 30s, the author of this article does not shy away from playing a couple of DotA rolls when he is free from writing good content for you.

What video games and what do Russians play and how much money do they spend on it: how the gaming economy works

Statistics

06/07/21

And how much money is spent on it

Valery Trusevich

plays Disco Elysium

Author profile

Sergey Antonov

plays HoMM III

According to Yandex research, the average age of a player in Russia is 36 years.

This is an adult and, what is important, a solvent audience: today the Russian gaming market ranks 11th in the world in terms of sales. The total volume of the Russian market is about $2 billion, which is about 2% of the world market. We studied the statistics and found out what and on what devices Russians play, as well as how much they spend on such entertainment.

Who plays what and what

According to VTsIOM, 19% of Russians play video games, 48% have never done it, and another 33% used to play it, but then abandoned it. The average gamer devotes five hours a week to this entertainment. Most players – 40% – are among young people aged 18-24. According to the Yandex research, 61% of gamers in Russia are men, 39% are women.

The majority of Russians play video games for entertainment: 82% of respondents answered this way. 34% of players try to escape from routine or problems in this way, 19% – to pass the time, 14% are looking for communication, and 3% earn a living playing games.

The most popular device for gaming is a PC or laptop, used by 53% of gamers. Smartphones took the second place with a small margin: 49%. Another 20% answered that they play on a tablet, 15% – on consoles, such as Playstation or Xbox. Only 4% said they play on portable consoles like the Nintendo DS or Switch. One person can use several devices at once, so the sum of all answers is more than 100%.

Sales and giveaways: how gamers don’t spend all their money on games

According to researchers from the Higher School of Economics, personal computers have been popular in Russia since the days of computer clubs. In addition, in the late nineties and early 2000s, a significant part of the games were pirated copies intended specifically for the PC.

The computer games industry — a study by the HSE and the Development CenterPDF, 2.7 MB

As for consoles, the most popular among Russian gamers is the Sony Playstation. According to Yandex Market, these set-top boxes in 2019accounted for 64% of sales of such devices. In second place is Xbox from Microsoft, in third place is Nintendo: 21 and 15%, respectively.

Source: Statista Source: Statista

The most popular game among Russians is the online tank battle simulator World of Tanks: it was named the favorite by 11% of players. Next come card solitaire games – 7%, as well as the mobile game “Pirate Treasures” – 4%. In addition, the leaderboard includes chess, The Witcher, Counter-Strike and the racing simulator Need for Speed.

Source: VTsIOM Source: VTsIOM

How the economy of video games works

In the gaming industry, games are divided into several types based on the economic model of their distribution.

Shareware, or free-to-play (F2P). The game itself is free, but inside the game the player can use money to buy clothes or weapons for the characters, like in Fortnite, or upgrades for tanks, like in World of Tanks. According to Wargaming and Superdata, the most popular F2P games in Russia are World of Tanks, Fortnite, PUBG and Dota 2.

How much you can earn by investing in video game items

Paid games, or pay-to-play (P2P). This is a classic distribution model: the player pays once and gets all the content created by the developers. For example, you just need to buy a disc or access to the game, and then you can play for free as long as you like. The most popular paid games in Russia, according to Yandex Market, are Grand Theft Auto V, a series of football simulators FIFA, Minecraft and Red Dead Redemption 2.

Subscription games, games as a service (GaaS). To continue playing on the server, you need to constantly pay for a subscription. The most famous example of such a game is World of Warcraft.

In paid games, the player can also be offered improvements for additional money. For example, characters in Assassin’s Creed or players in FIFA.

Since about 2014, the so-called subscription model has been gaining popularity. Large companies such as Microsoft, Google and Sony offer the player to buy a subscription to the game catalog right away. In fact, this is an analogue of Netflix or Evie, but for players. A subscription from Sony, called PS Plus, costs 3300 R per year, Xbox Game Pass from Microsoft – 7200 R.

Analysis of the content of subscriptions – an overview on the Stopgame website

Almost half of the income of manufacturers and sellers of digital games in Russia – 47% – comes from PC platforms. This is in stark contrast to Western and Asian countries, where PC and laptop games account for 15-20% of the market. Games for mobile devices are in the lead there: for example, in the USA they account for 61% of total sales. Apparently, in Russia, game developers for phones and tablets will soon catch up with computer game manufacturers in terms of sales: the mobile industry is growing by 20-25% annually.

Source: Statista Source: Statista

How much money is spent on video games

The average amount that a Russian gamer spends monthly on video games – purchase, access and equipment – is 959 R. The highest spending on these entertainments is again among young people 18-24 years: 1456 R per month. The older the person, the lower this item of expenditure: for example, people over 60 spend an average of 417 R per month on games.

The older the gamer, the less money he spends on games

9008 6

90 009 Age

Monthly spending on games

18-24 years old

1456 R

25-34 years

1187 R

35-44 years

834 R

45-59 years 9000 3

595 R

60 years and older

417 R

Video games and who plays them”, VTsIOM

Another expense for game fans is donations to streamers.