With its hiring of a new business manager for Australia and New Zealand, online gaming juggernaut Wargaming has taken its first steps to a becoming the next big name in esports down under.

Esports are booming in Australia, but compared to other nations there are a few clear bottlenecks slowing their growth. Our population is low, our internet quality is abysmal compared to the best esports nations, and we're still catching up to other countries as far as investment is concerned.

Still, the respective success of IEM Sydney — a Counter-Strike tournament that drew thousands to Sydney Olympic Park's Qudos Bank Arena — and of Riot Games and ESL in their production of the Oceanic Pro League, shows it's possible to make fully professional esports a reality in Australia.

Now its Cyprus-based Wargming's turn to test the waters, with the hiring of Travis Plane (former Business Development and Operations Director ANZ at InMobi).

"Our player base continues to grow each year and we believe this will only continue to rise with the growth of esports, greater internet connectivity and exciting plans we have in store," Plane said in a press release issued by Wargaming.

For a peek at the kind of event Wargaming might bring to Australia, one only has to look at what the company is doing elsewhere.

Just this month thousands of fans poured into Moscow's VTB Ice Palace to watch twelve World of Tanks teams duke it out for the title of world champions. Australia's own Team Efficiency was in attendance, taking on Russia's Not So Serious and North America's Elevate in Group B for a shot at the bracket stage.

It wasn't the most successful campaign for Team Efficiency — they failed to take a round from the elite NSS and Elevate, both whom eventually made it to the semifinals — yet they chose to view the Wargaming.net League Finals as a look into the future: an event that could one day arrive on Australian shores.

"It's obvious that our region is at the developing stage," says Dimitry Granovskiy, Team Efficiency's leading damage dealer. "Facing teams which are much better than us helped us to understand this difference and brought us new knowledge".

In a room above the main stage where finalists Tornado Energy and dING were playing for the top cut of Wargaming's $US300,000 prize pool, the company's Esports Director Mohamed Fadl said the whole community had to work together to popularise competitive events around the globe.

"We have an opportunity to build something which can last hundreds of years," he said. "We have to work together, if it's Riot, Wargaming, Blizzard or Valve, we have to sit together and ask 'Guys, what do we want to create?' "

This vision — the idea of creating an entertainment experience that will span generations — has driven over $US40 million of esports investment from Wargaming's coffers in the last four years.

"We don't make money from these events," admits Fadl. "What we get back — it sounds strange — but it's the passion, the crowds, the community, the emotion ... we're getting back one hundred, two hundred, even three hundred minutes of minutes-watched-per-person, and millions of viewers."

With those flashy numbers, it's not hard to see why brands worldwide are biting at the opportunity to invest into esports. Uber recently moved to sponsor Riot Games' OPL, while Intel, HyperX and Acer sponsored ESL's IEM Sydney.

The author travelled to Moscow as a guest of Wargaming.