When you think of great sports cities in America, Boston, Chicago and Dallas come to mind. Like most sports towns, Dallas offers pro football, hockey, basketball and baseball. And soon – Call of Duty, Halo and Overwatch.
Team EnVyUS is one of the top franchises in all of esports, also known as competitive video gaming. The club recently came under new ownership, and as part of the deal, its players and operations will move from Charlotte, North Carolina to Dallas.
Jacob Wolf, an esports reporter for ESPN, says Dallas investor Kenneth Hersh purchased TeamEnVyUS. Hersh owns Hersh Interactive Group, is a co-owner of the Texas Rangers and is the president of the George W. Bush Presidential Library in Irving.
Wolf says Hersh invested in EnVyUs because it is one of the biggest franchises in esports, with individual teams competing on multiple video game platforms. The group will soon add the Austin-Dallas Overwatch team to its roster.
Wolf says esports is expensive for franchise-owners, but is also lucrative. Revenue-sharing is a big component of pro esports leagues. Television and streaming deals, merchandising and sponsorships all help keep esports franchise profitable.
“The industry is predicted to make $1 billion in total by 2019,” Wolf says. “It’s growing every single year and we see that hundreds of millions…in viewership continually go up every year. It’s not slowed down.”
Wolf believes EnVyUS coming to Dallas is a big deal in terms of the tech industry. But ideally it will also give the city another sports franchise fans can root for.
Written by Dani Matias.