Activision CEO Eric Hirshberg believes that eSports is going to be “happening with or without us.” Having one of the top competitive franchises in the world in Call of Duty, he called the franchise’s first $1 million tournament “massive”.
“Games have become the biggest unofficial sports league in the world right now,” he said. “There’s a massive unofficial ecosystem of content, whether it be on YouTube or Wikipedia pages, dedicated to the world’s most dedicated gamers.”
While Hirshberg is enthusiastic about online, he was less optimistic about TV broadcasts. “I feel like there’s an organic thing that’s happening,” he said. “I’m more interested in supercharging that thing that’s already happening organically than transforming it into an existing ecosystem like television, because they’re not always compatible. It would be like saying what are the opportunities for YouTube videos on television.”
Source: Forbes
