Esports
TNT, Genius, 2K team on gamified NBA alt-casts
TNT Sports will broadcast gamified alt-casts of next week’s 2024 Emirates NBA Cup knockout rounds in partnership with Genius Sports and NBA 2K.
Rezzil releases Premier League Player VR soccer game
Cognitive training company Rezzil released Premier League Player on Tuesday, the first officially-licensed virtual reality soccer game. Rezzil signed a four-year deal with England’s top soccer league back in March. Built using Second Spectrum’s next-generation mesh tracking system Dragon — which use...
New league wants sim racers to level up for real cars
Video game car racing enthusiasts will soon have the opportunity to prove their gaming and real-life racing prowess by competing in Racing Prodigy’s new competition -- the Prodigy Racing League. The impetus behind the league is to make motorsports more accessible “using esports as the pathway to rac...
Management-team communication, revenue opportunities proving effective in Halo esports
That communication was a big selling point for Complexity, which made the leap to join the HCS in late 2022, even as the series was seeing slumping viewership . Beyond keeping lines of communication open, 343 has handled the sale of team-branded digital items in the online store, where teams receive...
A timeline to date for the Riot/League of Legends player dispute
Let's catch everyone up on where things stand vis-a-vis the planned walkout by League of Legends (LoL) players in North America. Here is a brief timeline on what has happened so far:
Paris Saint-Germain relying on Tundra's expertise in Rocket League collaboration
Integrating pro sports IP into Rocket League is nothing new for game publisher Psyonix, which has seen the likes of the NFL, NASCAR, F1, AC Milan, Nike and USL club San Diego Loyal take its marks and branding into the game for digital items such as purchasable skins for fans.
New league wants sim racers to level up for real cars
Video game car racing enthusiasts will soon have the opportunity to prove their gaming and real-life racing prowess by competing in Racing Prodigy’s new competition -- the Prodigy Racing League. The impetus behind the league is to make motorsports more accessible “using esports as the pathway to rac...
Management-team communication, revenue opportunities proving effective in Halo esports
That communication was a big selling point for Complexity, which made the leap to join the HCS in late 2022, even as the series was seeing slumping viewership . Beyond keeping lines of communication open, 343 has handled the sale of team-branded digital items in the online store, where teams receive...
Call of Duty League leaves stronger Twitch viewership for YouTube deal -- but why?
In terms of viewership, that move has paid off. Data from Stream Hatchet shows that CDL saw its hours watched jump 3x in Q1 vs. the same period last year, mostly due to a number of popular live co-streaming options on Twitch. And not only has CDL jumped on Twitch, but Stream Hatchet also reports tha...
Attendance, viewership, brand activation strong for Call of Duty League in Vegas
The Call of Duty League broke viewership and attendance records for its 2023 League Championship in Las Vegas last weekend, which streamed on Twitch and was held at UNLV's Thomas & Mack Center. Exact four-day attendance numbers were still being crunched by event organizers at presstime, but CDL ...
Misfits not exiting franchised esports, but rebrand reflects deeper dive into creator economy
Misfits this week unveiled a rebrand for the esports organization, a move that new Chief Media Officer Sam Toles tells SBJ is among the final elements of a business pivot started last year toward the creator economy.
Olympic Esports Week gives hope to gamers looking for IOC to get behind gaming
The IOC, by most accounts, pulled off a successful debut of Olympic Esports Week in Singapore last week. It gives the esports industry, and its fans, renewed hope that the Olympic movement will get behind sanctioning competitive gaming and a federation to govern international esports. After all, the...
International Tennis Hall of Fame creates AI-powered digital card game featuring Hall of Famers
The International Tennis Hall of Fame this week launched a new web-based game with artificial intelligence-powered features called Famers Duel. The game was created in collaboration with Infosys, the ITHF’s digital innovation partner and former title sponsor of the ATP 250 tournament held on its gro...
How social gaming platform Shake is targeting Gen Z with brand rewards
A startup called Shake is putting a new twist on social gaming by emphasizing friendly challenges in free-to-play contests that encourage positive brand involvement.
Playfly Sports continues to profit from college esports
Playfly Sports may be young -- it's four years old -- but it’s an ambitious firm, pushing further into international soccer as its business continues to grow.
2024 C.O.D.E. Bowl, USAA help another 1,800 veterans find good jobs
Veteran’s Day is Monday. My father served in the Vietnam War, and when he returned from his stint as a Navy corpsman (and getting hit by Agent Orange not once but twice, resulting in two battles with cancer that eventually killed him), he was fortunate -- he found a job with the Kentfield Fire Preve...
ESPN debuting new Football Island experience in Fortnite
ESPN is debuting a new gaming experience for fans with its island in Fortnite, ESPN Football Island.
Who’s playing games -- and what’s a ‘super gamer’?
Last week, Circana put out what I found to be a fascinating report about consumer behavior around video games. It found that 71% of U.S. consumers play games, which doesn’t surprise me. It also found that most gamers are 45 and older. Again, no surprise -- we grew up with video games (my first memor...
EA Sports FC 25 sets sales record for soccer games
Any worries EA Sports may have had about the performance of FC 25 must have dissipated almost immediately after the first sales number rolled in, as it didn't just set a record for the launch of a soccer game -- it did so with double-digit growth from the series’ debut last year, reports tracking fi...
League of Legends World Championship in Europe touts 10 sponsors
The League of Legends World Championship kicked off Sept. 25 and is wrapping up the second stage, beginning today and concluding Sunday, at the Riot Games Arena in Berlin. Riot Games has 10 sponsors onboard, including new supporters in HP with its Omen and HyperX gaming brands and OperaGX, the web b...
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Quote of the Day
But this is also not about us. So, we asked ‘What do people need?’ They need a little bit of fun, maybe a little bit of levity, a little bit of normalcy, those conversations about basketball.-- ESPN’s Malika Andrews, on the decision to structure yesterday’s “NBA Today” show as normal as possible despite the ongoing California wildfires.
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