ESPN rolls out e-sports site to cater to growing gaming audience
ESPN has launched an e-sports site in order to more comprehensively cover the competitive gaming space.
The site is currently being sponsored by T-Mobile and marks ESPN’s effort to serve “an audience that continues to grow.”
According to an article that ESPN ran last year, more than 205 million people watched or played eSports in 2014. While e-sports have long been big in Asia, the piece noted that North America and Europe have roughly 28 million competitive gaming fans and that number is growing by 21 per cent a year.
Of the new platform, editor-in-chief of ESPN.com Chad Millman said: “Fans will find the same level of quality content and journalism that users of ESPN.com have come to expect, including in-depth looks at the competitive gaming world and on-site reporting from the major tournaments.”
To kick off the site’s coverage, ESPN has brought in three reporters who were previously covering competitive gaming at other publications.
Darin Kwilinski, who most recently worked at e-sports broadcast network Azubu, will serve as editor. Rod Breslau and Tyler Erzberger, who were both previously at TheScore Esports, have been hired as writers.