Former NFL Network & ESPN CEO to lead Activision Blizzard's new eSports Division

[opt2not]

http://theweatherspace.com/2015/10/23/164283-former-nfl-network-espn-ceo-to-lead-activision-blizzards/

Very interesting developments in the pro/competitive gaming scene.

[dkersten]

Now that Blizzard was able to successfully create a League of Legends clone and get some players playing competitively I would say they are pushing to get a bigger piece of the worldwide audience for esports.. Sure, they have had a successful Korean league with StarCraft, but outside of that I haven't seen anything up until Heroes came out.  Then again, they just released a new addon to StarCraft 2, so perhaps with the bump in competitive play with Heroes, SC is making another comeback to the scene...  The article talks about a CoD league, but I can't imagine it will garner the same kind of audience LoL has had.  I'm not too into following the scene and I certainly don't play competitively, but I thought Twitch had the corner on the market for broadcasting esports.. Activision has the clout to break into it though, and Heroes of the Storm did manage to pull me away from League of Legends as a player, although the balance is horrific in comparison, so I haven't even bothered with ranked play.

Now it seems like every major player is trying to get an LoL clone out and start up their own championships and all that.. Might muddy the waters with so many jumping in.  Who'd've thunk one day there would be a viable sport that doesn't actually involve any physical activity.  Of course, as a gamer I can appreciate the skills... I could play for 15 hours a day for a year and not be as good as any of the "pro" players.. It's like everything nerds envisioned 30 years ago when being picked last for sports in gym class... sports that requires quick mental reflexes but the only physical trait it takes is being able to sit in one place for 20 hours at a time moving only your fingers and wrists...

As soon as competitive Candy Crush tournaments start up, I have a chance.  And where is the field for the Angry Birds division B?

[Howard_Casto]

Earlier this year ESPN had one of the popular gaming tournaments (StarCraft I think?) televised.  It had some of the lowest ratings ever on the channel, and keep in mind they host crap like curling and bowling. 

The people that do watch these sorts of tournaments do it for free over the net and expect it to remain free. 

So there is little to no money to be made in e-sports and thus it will remain an "underground" thing, like it is today.  I guess they could put commercials in the live stream, but that's about it. 

I want you to understand that I HATE traditional sports, yet even I understand that e-sports are never going to be a "thing". 

[dkersten]

A LOT of people (70,000) go to PAX in Seattle each year and they have one of the League of Legends tournaments there and it takes up a whole floor and a lot of the people who go only go for that.  There is money, just with Twitch I don't think there is money in broadcast television.  Plus StarCraft is just not a thing here in the states.. In Korea it's huge, to where they still put StarCraft characters on Pepsi, Doritos, etc. 

I would guess the thing with ESPN is the people who watch it are sports fans, and sports fans are not necessarily esports fans.  It is just as popular with kids today to watch others playing games like Minecraft as it is to actually play it.  Watching other people play video games is becoming big, I just don't know if the market is already saturated for cashing in on it. 

However, if you look at the history of X-games type sports.. when they first came on television it was a joke.  Nobody saw skateboarding, BMX freestyle, or snowboarding as a sport, they were hobbies that mostly went along with smoking pot, and kids who sit around and smoke pot aren't athletes, right?.  Well, now they are huge and easy to find on television.  Right now the gamers out there know where to watch this stuff for free, but if it crosses over to mainstream then television is still the most popular medium and there is money there.  It's a question of whether eSports will cross over to mainstream.