Former Los Angeles Lakers forward Rick Fox entered the eSports scene last December, purchasing a League of Legends team for a reported $1 million and rebranding it Echo Fox.
Fox recently indicated he may be joined by former teammate and Laker legend Kobe Bryant in the gaming world. In an interview last week with Bleacher Report’s eStream, Fox said that he has spoken with a few former and current athletes, namely Bryant, about eSports and the growing non-traditional sport.
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“(Kobe) is aware of what is moving in the ecosystem with some of his peers,” Fox said. “He doesn’t have a deaf ear or blind eye to this. We had some conversations about (eSports). If I had to suspect, Kobe is not far off from making his own move. He’s obviously welcome always to be a part of our world in any way, any capacity he’d want to be. We’d love adding him to our group.”
When reached for comment Wednesday afternoon, a spokesperson for Bryant said that there was no further comment to Fox’s remarks, adding that with his new venture capital company, Bryant Stibel, Kobe is currently weighing a lot of different business opportunities. As part of the $100 million fund, Bryant and serial entrepreneur Jeff Stibel have publicly invested in a Chinese education company but haven’t entered gaming, at least publicly.
In June, Bryant discussed with USA Today his feelings toward eSports and ESPN’s increased interest in broadcasting different competitions and treating it as more mainstream programming.
“I think people are really interested in watching people problem solve. It doesn’t matter what industry. People are very fascinated by that — seeing the struggles people go through and how they overcome it,” Bryant said. “I think this was just a matter of time before it caught fire. To be able to sit and watch a performance on TV and watch how the gamers are figuring out those challenges amongst themselves, you can’t help but be interested.”
Fox also mentioned to Bleacher Report that he has talked with Chicago Bears tight end/defensive end, Kyle Long, about his possibly entry into gaming once he is finished on the gridiron.
“We’ve talked behind doors about when (Kyle) is done, he wants to live in this world and be a part of this,” Fox said.