The big business behind the NBA’s move into esports

A major professional sports league will operate an esports league, a first for the esports industry, with the National Basketball Association and Take-Two Interactive Software’s early endeavor for gamers to compete while representing NBA teams. This partnership represents a watershed moment for the burgeoning esports industry with implications for both fans of long-established sports leagues and gamers around the world.

Why now for the NBA

Television viewership drives the majority of revenue for the major sports leagues, and esports attracts a lot of eyeballs.  More people watched the 2016 League of Legends Season 3 World Championship broadcast on Twitch than followed the dramatic 2017 Super Bowl via Fox Now (8.5 million and 1.72 million people respectively; Fox Now was free for anyone to stream the Super Bowl without requiring any log-in or authentication to stream). It likely was not lost on NBA commissioner Adam Silver that more people watched the League of Legends championship than the 2016 NBA Finals (32 million and 30.8 million people respectively). For the foreseeable future, esports will continue to generate increasing amounts of revenue and profit. This year, esports is expected to surpass $1 billion in revenues for the first time ever.  Revenues from are expected by some experts to reach $1.25 billion annually by 2019.