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• Esports gets bigger and more exciting every year
• eSports turns 20 this year, and it is almost poetic to see Blizzard’s Overwatch taking it into the future when it was Blizzard’s Starcraft that kicked off the whole phenomenon
• The sci-fi RTS is the 5th bestselling PC game of all time, and its popularity resulted in the creation of eSports in South Korea.

By Isaiah Mayersen on September 16, 2018, 9:05 AM

The big picture: New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft has brought Overwatch League team Boston Uprising, and the CEO of the New York Mets Jeff Wilpon has brought the New York Excelsior. Other executives from major sports teams, along with the usual eSports investors, are pushing the Overwatch League into the spotlight with other professional sports. eSports is about to get a whole lot more serious.

eSports turns 20 this year, and it is almost poetic to see Blizzard’s Overwatch taking it into the future when it was Blizzard’s Starcraft that kicked off the whole phenomenon. The sci-fi RTS is the 5th bestselling PC game of all time, and its popularity resulted in the creation of eSports in South Korea. But what has always been lacking from eSports? The answer used to be franchises and region-based teams, but if you’re one of the 300 million people who has been watching eSports in the last year, you might have noticed that’s changed. What’s lacking is money – eSports only generated $700 million last year. The NBA made a little less than $8 billion last year, and the NFL was somewhere in the ballpark of double that.

Overwatch League’s debut season was the first to have teams represent individual cities. Now, Blizzard has hired executives from the NFL and NBA and broadcasting specialists from Fox Sports and sports channel ESPN. After the finals in July pulled in over 20,000 fans to Barclays Center in Brooklyn, it’s no wonder they’re looking to expand. Blizzard has already announced franchises in Atlanta, Washington, Paris, Toronto, Vancouver, British Columbia, and says it’ll be bringing more Overwatch content to ESPN.

eSports is even more popular in China that it is in America, and China will be adding teams from Guangzhou, Chengdu and Hangzhou to its Shanghai team.

All this makes Overwatch League a “viewable product with audiences that can be marketed and carved up,” according to T.L. Taylor, who studies eSports and online gaming.

The president of Kraft group, Jonathon Kraft, says his organization has watched eSports closely but hasn’t moved on it now due to the untested and unpredictable nature of its previous business model. While the local team model hasn’t been tested on eSports before, he says “it’s not the wild, wild West anymore. There’s a structure. There’s substance.”

Despite being linked to their hometowns, all the teams play just outside of Los Angeles and they get free accommodation there, too. The only eSports that has players living in the towns they represent is NBA 2K, which has all the players commute to New York every weekend to play.

Riot Games has also been considering local team business models for League of Legends, the most popular eSports in the world. However, their head of eSports for North America, Chris Hopper, believes there will be diminishing returns if they expand into multiple cities: “We’ve sold out events because of the relative scarcity of presence in that market.” There’s clearly still a long way to go before eSports is running in parallel to NFL and other major sports, but who knows, maybe one day it’ll make it into the Olympics.

Fortunately, this hasn’t stopped executives from the Los Angeles Rams, Philadelphia Flyers and Sacramento Kings from all buying into Overwatch teams. Stay tuned for the Overwatch League to make a big splash in 2019.

Source: https://www.techspot.com/news/76457-overwatch-league-dials-up-notch-nfl-nba-team.html

• The esports branch of Alibaba Group’s sports affiliate (Alisports) is moving to Chongqing to develop a strong resource platform for its esports scene and build an international esports street, according to Times and Marketing Interactive
• Currently based in Shanghai, the move is a continuation of the “1+2” partnership agreement that Alisports signed with the Chongqing Sports Bureau, Chongqing High-Tech Zone and Jiulongpo District at the Smart China Expo last month, the Chongqing Economic

Artyom “dfs” Kutateladze

Currently based in Shanghai, the move is a continuation of the “1+2” partnership agreement that Alisports signed with the Chongqing Sports Bureau, Chongqing High-Tech Zone and Jiulongpo District at the Smart China Expo last month, the Chongqing Economic. Alisports will also work with Chongqing High-Tech Zone to build an ‘international e-sports street’ in Jiulongpo District.

Alisports aims to boost the sports industry and benefit more partners and consumers through e-commerce, media, sales, TV broadcast, smart technology, cloud computing, big data and finance service. Additionally, Alisports also organises the World Electronic Sports Games (WESG), which AirAsia came on board for this year as the official airline partner.

Additionally, Alisports will also organise large scale sports events and networking sessions to boost the cooperation of foreign and domestic companies within the local sports industry.

Source: https://cybersport.com/post/alibaba-esports-relocate-build-international-presence

• A Canadian eSports company is the latest to try and offer its own cryptocurrency
• Canada Cup is introducing the eSports ecosystem digital token (because, apparently, it couldn’t be creative enough to come up with a unique name), which will reportedly empower all gamers through the creation of a digital eSports currency specifically for the community

BY Erik Gibbs ON September 05, 2018

ESE will offer a medium to transfer value, reward both casual and professional players and compliment the current fiat-based payout structure. The token is designed, as described by Canada Cup, to fill a gap that prevents a number of casual gamers from being rewarded for their participation.

ESE token holders can passively earn more tokens through Canada Cup’s “staking rewards” program. This will provide an additional income source to both gamers and organizers, which will help them finance future participation. An ESE Loyalty Nodes program is also anticipated, and is designed to provide stability to the token award program above and beyond the passive awards users can accumulate. The staking rewards and Loyalty Nodes programs won’t be ready until sometime during the first quarter of next year.

A community wallet, representing 17% of the token’s initial supply, will be used to give back to the community. It will offer a variety of prize pools, player and team sponsorships, scholarships, charity donations and eSports advertisements.

Canada Cup, which was founded in 2010, hosts a number of tournaments for a variety of fighting games and is behind “the largest and most prestigious fighting game tournament in Canada,” the Canadian Fighting Game tournament.

According to the ESE white paper (in pdf), the currency will solve a number of problems, including complimenting fiat payouts by adding ESE tokens from the community wallet, which would increase the value of the total prize pool to support professional gamers financially and make it easier to transition into a gaming career.

It also promises to broaden payout structures to allow more players to reap rewards from tournaments, which means rewards are no longer limited to the top echelon of players, but can be extended to casual players due to an increased prize pool. Lastly, the currency will encourage tournament organizers to continue hosting events by supporting these events financially with ESE tokens from the community wallet to ensure that these events are sustainable, according to the company.

Source: https://calvinayre.com/2018/09/05/bitcoin/canadas-esports-tournament-creates-own-cryptocurrency/

Members of OG celebrate their win at The International at Rogers Arena in Vancouver after defeating PSG-LGD three games to two in a best-of-five grand final. (Dota 2 / Twitch)

OG, a European-based professional Dota 2 team, has won The International and with it the winner’s share of a more than $33 million prize pool, the biggest in the history of esports.

“It’s real. I feel so blessed.” said team captain Johan ‘n0tail’ Sundstein, a Danish pro marking his first win at the big-money tournament, which lasted six days at Vancouver’s Rogers Arena.

The Team defeated Chinese-based squad PSG-LGD by three games to two in the grand final of The International (TI) held at Rogers Arena on Saturday.

“What?,” said Topias ‘Topson’ Taavitsainen, a Finnish member of OG, moments after winning the deciding match.

Evil Geniuses captain Andreas ‘Cr1t-‘ Nielsen holds his head following a team defeat at The International. (Valve / Flickr)

Teams were playing Dota 2, a fantasy battle game played by two teams of five on PC computers. The game has more than 10 million active players across the globe.

The International pitted 18 of the best teams world-wide against each other in Vancouver, the first time the championships had been held outside Seattle in six years.

The best 16 teams made it to the main event at Rogers Arena, which saw teams square off against each other in glass booths positioned in the centre of the arena before thousands of fans.

Members of OG will split the winner’s cut of the prize pool, just over $14.5 million.

Vancouver-raised Artour ‘Arteezy’ Babaev,  and his team, Evil Geniuses, made it to the final day of competition but lost two straight in a best-of-three series Saturday morning to finalist PSG-LGD.

Members of Evil Geniuses, including Vacouver’s Artour Babaev, shake hands as they walk off the stage at Vancouver’s Rogers Arena. (Valve / Flickr)

Switching to Shanghai

Fans at Saturday’s grand final generally agreed Vancouver did a good job as event host, but added that The International is best seen in its traditional Seattle home, or moved around to different cities, somewhat like the Super Bowl.

“There are some parts that aren’t as good,” said Dota fan Vivian Chung The International in Vancouver. A veteran of three TIs, she says Seattle’s Key Arena, home to the event for six of its first seven years, featured an outdoor viewing area and  a better spectating experience.

“I think most people miss Key Arena,” she said.

Fans packed Rogers Arena for six days for The International. (Valve / Flickr)

Shortly before the final day’s play got underway, game developer Valve announced via video message that the 2019 International would be held in Shanghai.

“China has a large population playing Dota … so I think it’s a good chance for Valve, and Chinese players to enjoy this event,” said Jensen Zao, a Dota 2 fan from Toronto.

Six of the 18 teams invited to this year’s The International had rosters with a majority of players from China, including PSG-LGD.

“When it comes to Chinese team versus a western team, there’s always a lot of hype,” said Ronnie Qin.

Dates for the 2019 tournament have yet to be confirmed.

The tournament started in Germany in 2011 before moving to Seattle and then onto Vancouver.

Source: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/theinternational2018-wrap-1.4799379

• Popularity of eSports is growing so fast around the world that some experts have predicted it could overtake traditional sports in the next 10 years
• Here in Canada, stadiums have already been selling out as gamers battle each other for cash prizes of up to $25 million.

On this week’s episode of the Global News original podcast This is Why, host Niki Reitmayer sits down with ESPN eSports writer Tyler Erzberger, former professional gamer Chris ‘HuK’ Loranger and Global News reporter Jill Bennett, as they discuss how eSports is revolutionizing sports as we know it.

The popularity of eSports is growing so fast around the world that some experts have predicted it could overtake traditional sports in the next 10 years.

And here in Canada, stadiums have already been selling out as gamers battle each other for cash prizes of up to $25 million.

But what are eSports and how did they get so popular?

In its simplest definition, eSports are organized gaming tournaments in which professional gamers battle it out in popular video games. Fans can generally watch these competitions take place in large arenas or through popular streaming sites.

Source: https://globalnews.ca/news/4403488/this-is-why-esports-could-become-more-popular-than-hockey/