A new esports league, set to kick off in 2019, is looking for teams. The catch is that any candidates must also be real teams in the traditional sports world. That means that many major esports organizations might be excluded.
The League of Professional Esports is the brainchild of Japanese entertainment firm Akatsuki. The biggest names to enlist so far have been Spain’s FC Barcelona and Dutch club Ajax, but Turkey’s Galatasaray and a number of other soccer teams from Japan, Brazil, and Spain are also onboard.
The prize for winning the LPE will be $500,000, but so far the game on which the league will be based hasn’t been named. However, since all of the current teams are real-world soccer clubs, there would seem to be a strong chance that LPE will be based around a soccer game.
“The physical world limits us to compete, whether due to limitations of age, gender or simply physical capacity. With the arrival of esports we want to break that barrier and turn it into a flag that represents us all,” said Xavier Cortés, CEO of the LPE, according to Esports Insider. “We intend to bring light and transparency to a sector that moves millions of young people all over the world, and who see in this new way of competition an opportunity to demonstrate their skills and talent.
“That is why our league also aims to be a point of convergence between both worlds, reaching different generations and uniting both followers of conventional sports and esports.”
SportTechie Takeaway
The League of Professional Esports poses a high barrier to entry by only admitting those teams, and thus players, that are connected to a pro sports organization. The rule might also bar professional esports teams owned by athletes, such as German soccer star Mesut Özil’s Team Ozil, and thus losing out on some big names. But with this criterion, the LPE might be able to more quickly scale to compete with existing esports leagues, leveraging the power and influence of established traditional teams.