E-Sports has been growing bigger and bigger with Madison Square Garden hosting. With ESPN placing e-sports on the front of it’s magazine. Even independent games like Brawlhalla, not even in public beta yet, are having cash prize tournaments. It is a great time to be interested in E-Sports and the scene is just in its infancy right now with a lot of room for growth.
So in all this excitement Activision/ Blizzard have announced they are stepping up their game and creating an entire division for E-Sports to flourish says IGN. Not only that they are getting former ESPN CEO in charge of this showing that they are serious about this investment. That they want to be the leader in the future growth of E-Sports when it finally expands beyond MOBA type games and Counter Strike or Call of Duty.
“I believe esports will rival the biggest traditional sports leagues in terms of future opportunities, and between advertising, ticket sales, licensing, sponsorships and merchandising, there are tremendous growth areas for this nascent industry.” Says Bornstein according to IGN.
They went on to say that “thirteen billion hours” of gameplay had been viewed in the past year and were quite impressed by those numbers. They really believe this is a field that will expand into a new entire sports genre that we didn’t even know could exist.
According to IGN at the forefront of this Activision/Blizzard plan will be Hearthstone, Starcraft II, Heroes of the Storm, and Call of Duty. So if you think you have what it takes to go pro or just like to watch some amazing matches get ready for the crazy rapid growth of E-Sports.