Spanish Basketball Club to Form a Dota 2 Team
For the first time, traditional sports merges with eSports. Spanish Basketball Club Saski Baskonia forms an eSport team for Dota 2 including four more eSports league teams: League of Legends, Hearthstone, NBA 2K, and FIFA. Baskonia will be partnering up with Atlantis ESports to manage the eSports organization.
Baskonia’s Dota 2 Team
Sergio ‘SerVa‘ Luna -carry
Enrique ‘Guito‘ González -support
Alberto ‘aldebaran-‘ Reolid -support
Jaume ‘Argoniur‘ Torner -mid player
Julio ‘LaVel’ Bravo Ferrer -offlaner
Carlos ‘Axineas‘ Pérez -coach
Baskonia’s Dota 2 team already earned a few achievements and was proclaimed as the Spanish Champion this year. They will also be competing in several tournaments such as the JoinDOTA League, the Gigabyte Challenge, and the Paysafecard tournaments by next year.
source: dotablast
With Baskonia’s goal to add professionalism in eSports, players are treated like professional athletes. They have regular physical check-ups, mental coaching and nutrition guidance, they also have their own training facility.
Baskonia believes in the high potential of eSports as an industry. There was a 31% increase in the Spanish eSports market last 2014 which is an equivalent to €763 million. This opened a lot of opportunities for the Spanish eSports industry to have a strong foundation as an industry and achieve professionalism which can transcend to a global scale.
According to Ana Oliveras, Executive Director of Atlantis Esports, there is no surprise in a traditional sports club venturing into eSports especially with how eSports is booming so far. The International 5 prizepool amounted to $16.6 million and audiences, much like in League of Legends World Championships, can fill an entire stadium–not to mention the amount of viewership in streams.
“Seeing a club as prestigious as Baskonia decide to take the plunge and enter a world that is booming, can encourage other clubs to be interested in doing the same,” she said
Oliveras is also optimistic that other traditional sports club will follow suit and also venture into eSports but in the meantime, she is looking forward to seeing their Dota 2 team participate in The International qualifiers in 2016.
source: dotablast
Subscribe to INQUIRER PLUS to get access to The Philippine Daily Inquirer & other 70+ titles, share up to 5 gadgets, listen to the news, download as early as 4am & share articles on social media. Call 896 6000.
