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The National Basketball Players Association signed a deal with ReadyUp, linking up with an app that helps fans watch their favorite online gamers.
Under the deal announced Tuesday at Esports Rising, Los Angeles conference put on by Sports Business Journal, the league's stars will have an opportunity to profit from the online video-game leagues they will take part in, according to Payne Brown, president of the group's marketing arm.
"We're trying to give them a new way to engage with their fans through behavior they're already enjoying," Brown said.
The market is growing at $ 906 million this year, according to market researcher Newzoo. Backers of the business, in which players watch the game and the game, launched this year with Activision Blizzard's Overwatch League and Riot Games League of Legends Championship Series North America.
With franchises, salary caps and multimillion dollar TV deals with such networks as ESPN, the leagues are looking a lot like football or basketball.
New Phase
"Robert Muller von Vultejus, managing director of Lagardere Sports Germany, a European marketing firm, said:" This is a new phase, a rather critical phase on its way to maturity.
Historically video-game companies streamed competitions for free. This year Twitch announced a two-year deal to stream overwatch games that's worth an estimated $ 90 million, he said.
Corporate sponsorships, the biggest source of revenue for leagues and teams, are also growing. Epic Games is said to be $ 25 million for its Fortnite World Cup sponsors, according to the BroBible website. New advertisers joining the industry include courier DHL Worldwide Express, which created ads featuring a counter-Strike: Global Offensive. Software giant SAP SE has been sponsoring esports to reach tech-savvy young people who may want to work for the company one day.
Ken Hersh, an oil-and-gas investor from Dallas who is a Texas Rangers baseball team owner, bought an interest in the professional video-game organization Team Envy to get to the ground floor of an emerging industry.
"The whole ecosystem of traditional sports is being transformed into a digital world," Hersh said.
– Bloomberg News
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