Today we are going to start in a bit of a different way than usual, I am going to ask you to do a small test.
Grab a piece of paper and a pen and let’s start. Don’t worry or have a flashback to school though, I won’t grade you.
In which teams do all these international stars play?
Stephen Curry, Kevin Love, Neymar Jr., Michy Batshuayi, James Harden, Marcelino Huertas, Yevhen Konoplianka, Sergio Agüero.
I am 100% sure that you have been able to get right at least 5 of them.
But before you put away the paper, let’s go for double or nothing.
Tamás “Vizicsacsi” Kiss, Elias “Upset” Lipp, Xu “Fy” Linsen, Wang “Ame” Chunyu, Apollo “Apollo” Price, Galen “Moon” Holgate, Matthew “Deftly” Chen, Zaqueri “Aphromoo” Black
I can already see you from my chair: desperate, looking at the paper or the screen without knowing what to write, that sensation you have when you go to an exam and you know you are going to fail.
Believe it or not, both lists have a lot in common.
The difference is that in the second list they are all professional eSports players.
They are all players from teams as famous as Golden State Warriors, Cleveland Cavaliers, Paris Saint-Germain, Schalke 04, Valencia or Manchester City.
Big names are investing in eSports, and video game companies are all for it, not simply because of the salary pro gamers may receive.
It is also a huge opportunity to attract the sponsors that also support traditional sports teams, achieving the long-term security these give them.
In the next few months, the European Championship of League of Legends will announce its list of new teams for the 2018/19 season, in which the new system of franchised teams gets put into place.
There are talks about Manchester United, Manchester City or AS Roma joining teams already playing such as Schalke 04, and even large enterprises such as the Spanish telecom Movistar are looking into joining in.
Nothing is confirmed yet, except that eSports sure have a bright future, and that we will be here to tell you all about it as soon as more news surface, stay tuned.