Author: Irwin A. Kishner
If you open the history books, you’ll see that nascent eSports leagues are not unlike the early Big Four North American leagues, which were volatile places where commercially viable teams were here one day, but gone the next. For example, when the Basketball Association of America and the National Basketball League merged to form the NBA in 1949, the league had 16 teams, but only eight of those were still around in 1955. Original NFL franchises also came and went in the 1920s, as the early league found its footing, and the NHL barely survived its first year, when one of its four teams (the Montreal Wanderers) disbanded after their arena burned down.
What gave the leagues stability, and helped them grow into the mammoth enterprises they are today are a host of changes that fueled profitability, aligned the owners’ interests and helped them run their business in a predictable manner, on the field and on the balance sheet.
Riot Games and Activision Blizzard ATVI +1.28% are making similar changes to their nascent eSports leagues, by adding permanent franchises, revenue sharing agreements, player-centric features and other tried and true elements of their traditional sports brethren. Taken together, the changes are a massive leap forward for eSports, which will result in a much more predictable ecosystem for game publishers, owners, players, sponsors and other industry participants.
Activision Blizzard aims to have at least 28 international, city-based Overwatch League teams at a reported franchise fee of $20 million, while Riot Games is planning on having ten permanent franchises in its North American League of Legends Championship Series (NA LCS), at a cost of $10 million for existing team owners, and $13 million for new ones. Some of the details of the Overwatch and NA LCS franchises are still being hammered out, but we know many NBA, NFL, MLB and NHL owners are in a prime position to secure franchises.
League of Legends has reportedly received franchise applications from all of its existing teams, which include Rick Fox’s Echo Fox, the Philadelphia 76ers’ Team Dignitas, Milwaukee Bucks owner Wesley Edens’ FlyQuest, and Team Liquid, which is owned by aXiomatic, an eSports company with star-studded investors including Tampa Bay Lightning owner Jeff Vinik. For its part, Overwatch has already announced nine franchises, including a Boston team owned by New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, a New York team led by New York Mets COO Jeff Wilpon, a Los Angeles team owned by Stan and Josh Kroenke, and a San Francisco team led by Andy Miller and Mark Mastrov, co-owners of the Sacramento Kings.
Here are five issues likely considered as potential owners reviewed their bids and the leagues’ governing documents.
Sports investors are masters of eSports’ key revenue drivers
Existing team owners find eSports compelling because of their mastery of the industry’s five main revenue streams – sponsorships, advertising, merchandise, tickets and media rights. Many synergies exist within those areas. For instance, eSports caters to a desirable, content-hungry youth demographic that advertisers find appealing, and professional sports franchises have deep relationships with major corporations.
Owners also know that eSports is a powerful drawing card to fill arenas. Past NA LCS and Overwatch World Cup events attracted crowds comparable to NBA and NHL games. As the market grows, NBA and NHL owners will benefit from events that can fill up their arenas on off-days.
MLB and NFL owners with larger stadiums probably view the immediate venue synergies as more of an open proposition, albeit one with tremendous potential. Could eSports events fill up massive U.S. stadiums? Consider the League of Legends 2014 World Final in Seoul’s Sangram Stadium – a Super Bowl-esque event with 45,000 fans and a performance by the rock band Imagine Dragons. There’s also the potential to develop eSports-specific venues, which are taking hold in many U.S. cities. Given their familiarity with building arenas and stadiums in their home cities, owners will have another option at their disposal.
Finally, owners know how to produce engaging content, and they have strong relationships with broadcasters and over-the-top distributors, both of which are important when you consider the staggering international eyeballs for eSports content. Last December, Riot Games struck a six-year, $300 million deal with MLB’s BAMTech to stream and distribute League of Legends content, and in June, Activision Blizzard signed a two-year streaming deal with Amazon’s Twitch. The revenue from both will flow to them through their respective revenue sharing agreements, and owners will have many other opportunities to strike new media rights deals that benefit their individual bottom line, and the league’s collective pot.
NA LCS and Overwatch League are somewhat unlike traditional sports leagues
An important difference between traditional sports leagues and eSports leagues is their structure and the rights of franchise owners. Traditional sports leagues are controlled by the principal owners of the league’s franchises. For example, Major League Baseball is an unincorporated association led by Commissioner Rob Manfred, who is hired by the 30 principal owners and exclusively represents their interests. Simply put, the owners are in the driver’s seat. If they want to admit a new team, approve an ownership transfer or make a major rule change, they vote on it.
On the other hand, Riot Games and Activision Blizzard are private and public companies, respectively, and both ultimately serve the interests of their shareholders. Both also own their intellectual property and can control how the game is played and presented. Consequently, franchise owners will be their business partners, but they won’t control the league itself.
