Activision Blizzard has finally decided to get serious with eSports and its ever growing popularity worldwide, especially that Huffington Post merely considered their efforts with the Call of Duty Champ tournament as small business, bringing in only 80,000 concurrent viewers. That is indeed a small share of a pie in comparison with ESL One's Counter-Strike Go tournament reaping 1.1 million viewers.
In order to answer the challenge for dominance in the eSport industry, Activision Blizzard is creating their own internal division for eSports. Activision Blizzard announced last Wednesday that they would be focusing more on professional gaming unlike before. And to somehow be assured of their success in eSport industry, Activision Blizzard enlisted the help of Mike Sepso, Major League Gaming co-founder, for Senior Vice President. To complement Sepso, Activision Blizzard likewise hired Steve Bornstein, who served as president and CEO of ESPN.
It is good to note that it was during the time of Bornstein that NFL has successfully created a system to cash in from broadcast and merchandising rights under strict guidelines. With the help of both veteran executives, Activision Blizzard hopes to cement their name and increase their influence in eSports or professional competitive gaming world.
Over the past years, gaming enthusiast and audiences certainly felt the tremendous increase of eSports' popularity. It has been gradually carving its name globally. Bornstein himself felt that "eSports will rival the biggest traditional sports leagues in terms of future opportunities." With that in mind, he and Sepso would try to recreate their previous success in the new internal eSports division of Activision Blizzard.
However, despite the naming of the two sports Goliaths, Mike Sepso and Steve Bornstein, to manage the internal eSports division of Activision Blizzard, there are still no details on what to expect next from the gaming company. Bobby Kotick, the CEO of Activision Blizzard, was keen not to give any details saying only that;
"Celebrating our players and their unique skill, dedication and commitment is the essence of our eSports initiatives. We intend to ... make certain this remains an important growth driver for Activision Blizzard."
What do you think about this bold move of Activision Blizzard hiring top executives for their coming eSports division, will it work? Feel free to share and comment below?
