ESPN has "announced plans to aggressively cover" e-sports, "beginning on its website and apps," according to Paresh Dave of the L.A. TIMES. ESPN.com "rolled out a section devoted to articles and videos about professional leagues and tournaments for video games such as 'League of Legends' and 'Counter-Strike.'" Initial hires include e-sports media company Azubu former Managing Editor Darin Kwilinski; former TheScore Senior Editor Rod Breslau; and TheScore writer Tyler Erzberger. The writers will "make regular appearances on shows such as ESPN’s flagship 'SportsCenter' as early as this weekend when the latest 'League of Legends' season powers up" in L.A. ESPN’s e-sports push was "cemented after its magazine dedicated an entire issue on video games last summer and received positive feedback; a feature from that issue on a top player drew 1.1 million pageviews on ESPN.com." The network also "carried some live broadcasts online and aired a college video game competition on ESPN2." ESPN is "staying 'open minded' about what comes next, with possibilities like more e-sports TV broadcasts or even airing e-sports shows on popular gaming video apps such as Twitch" (L.A. TIMES, 1/15). ESPN The Magazine and ESPN.com Editor-In-Chief Chad Millman said that the company "was ready to take the next step in the coverage by delivering everything from credible, authentic storytelling, to news coverage, event coverage and even analysis." Millman said, "We want to treat eSports with the same seriousness and credibility that we treat the NFL, the NBA, and major league baseball" (VARIETY.com, 1/14).
NOT A PASSING FAD: CNBC's Julia Boorstin noted ESPN is "jumping into an area that is exploding." Around 18% of the roughly 140 million Americans "who play any sort of video games have watched e-sports in the past year ... and the amount spent of e-sports worldwide is estimated to grow to nearly $2 billion in 2018, up from $750 million last year.” Activision has been “doubling down, last week buying e-sports firm Major League Gaming to bolster the e-sports division it announced in October.” Rival Electronic Arts in December announced plans to "launch its own e-sports division." Boorstin: “We are seeing all the major players face off over this space." That does not even include the "competition over where fans will watch e-sports," which is between Amazon's Twitch, YouTube and Turner, which "kicked off its e-sports coverage with a live streaming tournament at CES earlier this month." Boorstin: “When you see companies like Turner -- we're talking about networks owned by Time Warner, the most traditional of the media companies getting in there -- it shows that this is really very mainstream” (“Squawk Box,” CNBC, 1/15).
