Recently, Major League Gaming's president and co-founder, Mike Sepso, offered some remarks on just how big the broadcasting property could get. Sepso's remarks may prove surprising, but one thing is quite clear: Major League Gaming is eager to fulfill the first two thirds of its name.
Sepso make it pretty clear when he said: “We'll be bigger than the NHL (National Hockey League) in terms of viewership and revenue in about two years.” Given that the live audience growth for Major League Gaming events has grown fully 600 percent since just 2010, and Major League Gaming holds its own streaming platform offering up 120 hours of original programming every month—about five full days's worth of it—these aren't exactly outlandish claims. Sepso also went on to suggest that the NHL wasn't the only target in Major League Gaming's upward track; as his next target was to surpass, of all things, the revenue and viewership of NASCAR.
Major League Gaming has made plenty of strides in that direction, including a variety of new hires, like the general manager of the Houston Rockets, Daryl Morey, and the chief executive officer of Relativity Media, Ryan Kavanaugh. That's quite a bit of expertise coming in on Major League Gaming's side, and expertise that will almost certainly propel the group to prominence.
Some may believe that the idea of sitting around watching people play video games doesn't really have much room to take off, to which it's important to note that that's most of professional sports, really. But Major League Gaming has some particular advantages over many professional sports, like an activity that can be more familiar to viewers, as well as better special effects.
But while some may not think that the idea of Major League Gaming can really take off, there's certainly quite a bit to say that it can. Just look at the sheer amount of growth it's had in such a short time; Major League Gaming, at last report, has only existed since 2002. Here we are, a little over 10 years later, and now the organization is on pace to overtake hockey. If it manages to get on par with NASCAR, that's going to represent a major sea change in our way of life as we know it. Consider the perception of video gaming in general when it's actually a professional sport on par with hockey or auto racing. That's a pretty major change; but consider further implications. Sections of Europe have started to see growth in the e-sports bar concept; places like the Mana Bar have also thrown in some growth. Could something like that catch on in the United States? It's a question to consider, make no mistake.
The point here, of course, is that Major League Gaming is really catching on. That has quite a few potential implications, from perception to development and so on, right down the line. Where it ultimately goes from here, well, only time will tell that much. But there are possibilities aplenty here, and the end result should be pretty exciting to say the least.
