By building local franchises for the Overwatch League, game developer Blizzard Entertainment has "offered a structure that could appeal to professional sports executives able to provide valuable cachet," according to Jason Bailey of the N.Y. TIMES. The first two franchises, the Boston Uprising and the N.Y. Excelsior, were "bought by organizations connected" to Patriots Owner Robert Kraft and Mets COO Jeff Wilpon. Executives with the Rams, Flyers and NBA Kings soon "joined the ownership ranks." The Kraft Group was "swayed by the pitch for the Overwatch League, which like a professional sports league tracks detailed statistics on teams and players, has a regular broadcast schedule, a postseason, and player transactions." Kraft Group President Jonathan Kraft said, "It's not the wild, wild West anymore. There's a structure. There's substance." But Bailey noted the local franchise model "remains largely untested." Riot Games Head of Esports for North America Chris Hopper said that his company, which publishes "League of Legends," has "not yet found a city-franchise system it likes." In the new NBA 2K League, players "live in the cities of their team's corresponding basketball franchise and travel to New York every weekend to compete." Because the NBA "already has city franchises, no other e-sports model was really considered." MIT professor T.L. Taylor said that game companies are "trying to replicate the long-term audiences found in traditional sports, and regionalism and nationalism have been powerful anchors." She added, "Now that e-sports can be seen as a viewable product with audiences that can be marketed and carved up, it's being fit into modes of industry and entertainment that are resonant" (N.Y. TIMES, 9/15).
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