Whitaker on the players being in Memphis all the time. The players on the team will be accessible and out in the community just like the players on the Grizzlies roster. After the draft, all the players that Grizz Gaming drafts will be moved to the city of Memphis, put in housing, and paid a considerable salary to compete every week in NBA 2K. They are trying to make this as much like the NBA as they possibly can. The league is putting together practice facilities, creating practice squads in local markets, among other things. For the first time, having the professional sports league backing this and making this league go.” Around the world it’s a big thing and for the 2k league it’s great to have the NBA and the game developer involved in this. When I asked Whitaker about the involvement of the league he told me “It’s huge. The biggest asset that the league has going for it is the fact that both the developer and the NBA are both working together to put the league together, a first for any professional franchise. The NBA 2K League is trying its best to do everything it can to make this is a successful eSports league. People are watching this sport in huge numbers and tuning in from all sorts of different platforms.” Lang Whitaker, Grizz Gaming GM told me by phone. Last year a game from the Stanley Cup final and a game from the World Series, those combined did not have more viewers than the League of Legends final. This is a game that clearly is super popular and a lot of people are playing it all the time. “1.6 million people play 2k for a median 70 minutes per day. “People are watching this sport in huge numbers and tuning in from all sorts of different platforms.” The NBA and 2k18 have gone out of their way to make this as professional as possible, from training facilities, drafts, and even traveling every week to a studio to play their games against other teams. After the players qualify, they will get drafted by one of the seventeen teams in the league, and then move the Memphis to be a part of the team. The inaugural season is this year with qualifying already happening all over the world. In 2016, there was 162 million frequent viewers of online gaming worldwide and that number is expected to increase to over 250 million by 2020.Ģk Sports has jumped on the eSports train, creating their own league backed by a professional sporting league, the NBA. The people that are playing these games have become millionaires, but even more so than the people playing these games, the fans watching them have increases every year. At the International Dota 2 competition in 2017, it broke the record for the largest prize pool in eSports history at $24 million. Recently, it has exploded - for the 2018 Call of Duty World League Championships, the winning team will pocket $1.5 million. eSports is here to stay and its and even bigger than most people might imagine.ĮSports has been around for awhile, people playing together in LAN parties at their homes, or just playing with someone else on your internet connection hundreds of miles away. As someone who plays NBA2k on a regular basis, I understand it, but still find myself amazed as my eight year old son watches someone play Minecraft on YouTube. It is still something that most people in general don’t think about, unless you are familiar with the world of online gaming. The world of eSports is a unique thing, even in today’s technologically savvy times.
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