By Alex Kurtz Sports editor
What do the Philadelphia 76ers, a professional basketball team with millions of fans and Team Dignitas, an eSports organization, have in common? If you answered that they are both owned by the same person, you are correct.
ESports are on the rise as the next huge potential target for venture capitalists accross the nation as the the industry has gone from some “nerds” playing video games against each other to a $439 million potential cash cow that is on the verge of exploding.
The 76ers were the first NBA team to plunge into the market of eSports with their September purchase of Team Dignitas and then-upstart Apex, which held a spot in the North American League of Legends Championship Series and was rebranded to compete under the Dignitas name.
The acquistion came almost a year after a presentation was given about the growth of eSports overall at the NBA Board of Governors meeting.
Soon after, Team Liquid, which has teams or players in most established eSports, were sold to a group that included Magic Johnson, co-owner of the Golden State Warriors and Los Angeles Dodgers, AOL co-founder Steve Case and entrepreneur Tony Robbins. The hope of the purchase is to build the brand into a major sports entertainment franchise.
While all this information is great, what is the point of knowing all of this?
The answer to that is most sports Leagues were not built overnight. ESports, while only being around for about 20 years, is now on the verge of blowing up to monumental proportions with millions of dollars being thrown around by venture capitalists.
While some might not like the fact that established brands in the sports industry such as ESPN, Fox Sports, and Bleacher Report have started covering the market, it needs to be addressed. Whether you believe that they are “sports” or not is a discussion for another day.
This growth is unprecedented by any major sports league ever. The NFL took 50 years before it could beat out the MLB in America in viewership, and the NBA didn’t explode into major viewership until the late 1960s.
Meanwhile, the finals of the World Championship of League of Legends, one of the many eSports in existence, was only beat out in viewership of sports championship games by the Super Bowl. The League of Legends World Championship just finished its sixth year and it drew 36 million overall viewers.
The world is about to witness an explosion of eSports as a whole and we have a front-row pass for it. Whether or not you want to watch it is also a talk for another day, but one thing is for sure: growth won’t stop for a long time.
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