Activision Blizzard CEO Kotick: “We’re organizing around teams and leagues. You will have the Overwatch League which will have a certain number of teams.”
At the Vanity Fair New Establishment Summit, Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick told CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin that the rise of spectators for eSports has risen to 100 million, giving the video game publisher a huge incentive to develop the eSports space.
Giovanni Bruno of TheStreet, who interviewed Kotick in the same event, wrote that Activision Blizzard will be focused on making “professional” video game content to compliment the already lucrative “user-generated” content enjoyed by viewers.
“What we’re doing is creating professional content. So we’re organizing around teams and leagues. You will have the Overwatch League which will have a certain number of teams. Those teams will be a combination of professional sports teams as owners and endemic sports teams as owners,” Kotick said.
Additionally, Kotick explains that fans and spectators in the eSports space should watch out for more arena and live spectator events to go with their professional league plans.
Overwatch’s rise as an upstart eSports title has been received tremendously by event organizers and media groups. The game has steadily increased the number of third-party leagues in recent months, with OGN Korea recently launching the APEX OGN Overwatch league that pits international teams from across the globe to compete in Korea.
NRG picture from Kenzi @kenzi131
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