Bloomberg Businessweek - USA (2019-06-17)

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June 17, 2019

RobertshasbeentryingtogettheteamtoeatPhiladelphia

cheesesteaks. The Europeans are ambivalent.

The players spend the rest of their day online scrimmag-

ing against other Overwatch teams. They also study film, sit-

ting with coaches and reviewing recordings of prior matches.

The house has a gym, but gross motor exercise is optional.

As in pro baseball, skipping college and heading straight

to the pros is the norm in e-sports—though with the recent

proliferationofcollegiateteams,somehighlytoutedrecruits

arenowchoosingtospenda coupleofyearsona university

campusperfectingtheirfingerworkagainstfellowstudent

gamers. Elk (Elijah Gallagher, 19), the only American player

on the Fusion, says his parents were disappointed when he

chose to forgo a higher education. He’s saving his salary to put

toward college should his e-sports career peter out.

Injuries are more common than a nongamer might imag-

ine. Neptuno began the season with bandages on his arm

and is suffering from tendinitis and neck pain. Players use

disposablehand-warming pouches to keep limber during

matches.Websites list their gear, including the curvature and

circumferenceof their preferred mouse.

InFebruarythe Fusion posted a video on YouTube in

whichGrittyvisited the players’ house, ate a trayful of subs,

tooka selfie,and, when leaving the bathroom, gave the uni-

versalsignfor“It smells bad in here.”

Overwatchisn’t the only competitive e-sport. Teams have
alsobeenformed to play League of Legends, Counter-Strike,
Fortnite, andother games, potentially taking fans away from
Overwatch. Thegame garnered tens of millions of regular play-
ersafteritsrelease in 2016, but it’s since been in decline, on
somedaysbarely ranking in the top 10 of most-viewed games
onTwitch,theservice owned by Amazon.com Inc., where fans
watchlivestreams of people playing. Todd Juenger, an analyst
withBernsteinResearch, said in a recent report that he thinks
Activisionwillmove up the release date for Overwatch 2, by a
year, to 2020, to try to generate renewed interest.
But recently, tickets to an Overwatch match were being
offered at $10, compared with the usual $20. On a Friday night,
the 528-seat theater was less than half full. “I am extremely
skeptical that the current business model of e-sports can sus-
tain the sort of hype that is going into it now,” says Frank
Fields, an industry consultant.
Roberts is undeterred. The recent deal with SK Telecom
involves a half-dozen different games, an effort, he says, to
“de-risk the portfolio” beyond Overwatch. “I think it could be
bigger than some of the legacy sports,” he says of Comcast’s
e-sports venture. “We don’t have to compete in just one game.
We’re not just talking about, like, ice hockey, where it’s only
popular in kind of cold regions. Everybody plays video games
in every single country, and so that’s going to continue to be
the glue that connects people.”
Himself included. On Sunday mornings, Roberts wakes up
and plays Overwatch with a group of childhood friends. “It’s a
way to keep in touch,” he says. “We’re really bad, but we have a
lot of fun.” Although right now Roberts reports to David Scott,
Comcast Spectacor’s CEO, there’s a chance that someday he’ll
be asked to succeed his father, much as Brian took over from
his dad 17 years ago. Roberts says he’s daunted by the prospect.
“People don’t understand how hard my dad works,” he says.
Presumably, were he running a company with a market cap
close to $190 billion, there wouldn’t be a lot of time left over to
quell robotic uprisings and perfect his tank skills.
Despite the recent murmurs of an e-sports bubble, Roberts
sees an opportunity to reach a new generation of fans, par-
ticularly young men, who don’t follow traditional sports or
watch regularly scheduled TV. People such as Andres Villegas,
a 34-year-old event planner in Los Angeles, who comes to
Overwatch games dressed in sandals and armor to cheer for
the Los Angeles Gladiators. Overwatch, he says, “gives us nerds
something to root for.” His favorite character is Mei, a Chinese
climatologist-superhero who freezes enemies with an endo-
*DIVISION LEADER. DATA: OVERWATCH LEAGUE thermic blaster. “If she were real, I’d marry her,” he says.

Robertsleadsa socialstrategy

meeting in March at the Fusion’s

headquarters

OverwatchLeagueStandingsasofJune 5

PLAYOFFSCUTOFF

Vancouver Titans*

New York Excelsior*

San Francisco Shock

London Spitfire

Los Angeles Gladiators

Dallas Fuel

Philadelphia Fusion

Hangzhou Spark

Seoul Dynasty

Atlanta Reign

Toronto Defiant

Boston Uprising

Shanghai Dragons

Chengdu Hunters

Guangzhou Charge

Paris Eternal

Los Angeles Valiant

Houston Outlaws

Washington Justice

Florida Mayhem

Team

14

12

11

9 9 9 8 8 7 7 7 7 7 6 5 5 3 3 2 1

Wins

Pacific

Atlantic

Pacific

Atlantic

Pacific

Pacific

Atlantic

Pacific

Pacific

Atlantic

Atlantic

Atlantic

Pacific

Pacific

Pacific

Atlantic

Pacific

Atlantic

Atlantic

Atlantic

Division

Burbank

Burbank

Burbank

Burbank

Burbank

Burbank

Burbank

Burbank

Burbank

Burbank

Burbank

Burbank

Burbank

Burbank

Burbank

Burbank

Burbank

Burbank

Burbank

Burbank

Where they play

0 2 3 5 5 5 6 6 7 7 7 7 7 8 9 9

11

11

12

13

Losses