B/R Weekly Rushdown: Wizards, Warriors and 76ers Getting Involved in Esports
Boy, oh boy, what a week for the Rushdown.
The tournament season is picking back up. Fans are getting their first tastes of the new Dota 2 scene, the final push to the LCS is going on and the Capcom Cup is quickly approaching. There's lots to talk about there on its own.
But the business end of esports exploded this week. So here is, arguably, the biggest Weekly Rushdown of news, ever.
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Team Liquid Bought Out by Holding Group Attached to Warriors, Wizards
It's the beginning of a new era for Team Liquid. As one of the biggest, best-known organizations across esports, they held a special place in both the industry and in the hearts of fans. Now, a new ownership group, AXiomatic, looks to bring it to the next level.
AXiomatic isn't necessarily a household name, but few sports fans haven't noticed them at some point. As DailyDot.com's Sam Nordmark spelled out:
"The new ownership group, AXiomatic, is led by Mandalay Entertainment Group CEO Peter Guber and Monumental Sports & Entertainment CEO Ted Leonsis, which combined own a total of seven national sports teams including the Golden State Warriors, Washington Capitals, and the Los Angeles Dodgers. NBA legend Magic Johnson is also a member a of the investment group.
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Liquid is one of the largest and most successful organizations in esports history. Founded in 2000 and headquartered in the Netherlands, they sponsor elite-level players and teams in Dota 2, Super Smash Bros., Counter-Strike and many more titles.
And they weren't the only noteworthy to sell to a notable NBA-affiliated company.
Team Dignitas Bought Out by Philadelphia 76ers
Britain's Team Dignitas is now Philadelphia's Team Dignitas after being bought out by the NBA's Philadelphia 76ers. They join North American League of Legends organization Apex Gaming as acquisitions that will help the basketball team offer a more diverse platform to potential sponsors. "We’ll do promotions that are fun and cute," said team CEO Scott O’Neil in an interview with Sports Illustrated's Stephanie Apstein. "But the opportunity is really in offering sponsors an opportunity to reach a base they cannot find."
Dignitas and Apex give the Sixers a strong reach into a number of major titles. Dignitas owns competitive CS:GO and Overwatch teams, while Apex (who have since been merged with Dignitas) has a team in the League Championship Series. O'Neil went on to acknowledge that the current management of Dignitas will remain intact, which teases at an interesting future for both the team and for esports as a whole.
Having esports organizations take on the role of "extra place to put sponsors' logos," while somewhat stultifying, is a genius stroke by the Sixers, and Dignitas isn't alone in offering visibility to tough-to-crack demographics. This could very well be the norm in the coming years.
German Football Clubs Getting in On Esports Action, Too?
No, the news of traditional sports organizations getting into esports isn't over quite yet. According to a report by German news outlet Wirtschaftswoche (via SplitPush), eight German Bundesliga clubs are kicking around the idea of getting into esports.
"As a club that is always looking to innovate, of course we discuss intensively about esports," said a representative from 1. FC Cologne (via SplitPush). "However, it is yet to be decided whether and in which form would make sense for the 1. FC Cologne, to create an esports team or something similar."
Two other German football clubs are already involved in esports. Schalke 04 purchased League of Legends team Elements earlier this year, and Wolfsburg houses two FIFA players. Several other clubs across Europe are also dabbling in esports, most notably Manchester City, which launched an esports division back in July.
While details are still scant, the wave of capital flowing into teams right now will likely attract more and more sports organizations. Within a year, the business end of esports could be much, much cleaner on the whole.
Riot Looking to Rebuild Bridges with Teams?
Riot Games, the publisher behind League of Legends, seems to be making moves to rebuild bridges with pro teams after a month-and-a-half of strife. Last Thursday, Riot put out a press release discussing its plans to open up new revenue opportunities for teams ahead of this year's Worlds. The approach, quite simply, is to imitate Valve across the board.
New features include the following:
- Championship and Challenger skins, which add to LCS and MSI prize pools
- Team Championship skins, which will give a cut of revenue to the players
- Team-branded in-game items, which give a cut of revenue to the teams
If that all sounds familiar...it should, because it's basically a carbon copy of what has made Counter-Strike and Dota 2 cash cows for players and teams (with Dota 2 featuring tournament Battle Passes and Steam possessing a massive marketplace infrastructure for player- and team-based skins in both Dota 2 and CS:GO). Despite the fact that Riot won't be receiving any points for originality, however, this is still a great move both in terms of PR and in securing the long-term future of the LCS.
The relationship between teams and Riot has been growing steadily worse as the company pockets billions a year while passing more and more of the burden of promoting the LCS onto the teams. On top of that, Riot has made itself an enemy of many team executives as they've witnessed other organizations like Renegades and Team Dragon Knights forced into selling on the publisher's whimsical disciplinary rulings.
"League is running into a lot of issues similar to Starcraft 2 before it became a dead game
— The Esports Writer (@FionnOnFire) August 24, 2016"
Hopefully things can turn around
Team-branded merchandise and prize pool-boosting microtransactions are proven successes and adding them is, frankly, long overdue. Whether or not this will secure LoL's future as a premiere esport, something pundits were openly beginning to question, remains to be seen.
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