Activision Founds New eSports Division, Hires Giants to Staff It

Activision has by far the biggest slice of the eSports pie, greater than Riot Games or Valve--thanks to their semi-recent purchase of Blizzard Entertainment, not only do they have Call of Duty, they also have Hearthstone, Heroes of the Storm, World of Warcraft (which is occasionally played professionally) and most important of all, Starcraft 2. Since they basically own the eSports scene right now, it makes sense they’d want to start throwing their weight around--and it seems they’re going to start doing that by bringing in the heavy hitters.

Last month, they started things off by announcing the Call of Duty World League, a more formal and high-pressure environment that hoped to catapult Call of Duty to premiere FPS esport and dethrone the current master, Counter-Strike. But that, as it turns out, is only the first branch of a much larger beast, which Activision is now calling its ‘eSports Division’--which hopes to discover:
 

“all-new ways to deliver the best-in-class fan experience across games, platforms and geographies.”

Taken from a press release the company put out today. Now. That in itself would be neat enough, but like I said--they’re bringing in the heavy hitters. And to really take command of the budding eSports scene Activision has recently hired Mike Sepso and Steve Bornstein to give them a competitive edge. Mike is the founder of MLG, while Steve is the former CEO of ESPN, of all things--both men overqualified to lead Activision into the future of broadcasting professional gaming.

As for what kind of magic they’ll cook up? Time will tell…