On the flipside, there is a defensive angle to the NBA’s move into esports: It’s about ensuring the relevance of it’s core product to future audiences. The public’s interests change over time. In sports too. The NBA has been on an upswing for the past few years, yet continued success and popularity aren’t a given. Not even for the best basketball league in the world.

There is ample evidence that gaming and esports are a favorite pastime among younger generations. Thus, it makes sense to try and reach those audiences if you are in the entertainment business. The NBA tries by creating a digital replica of it’s core product, hoping that it might convert them to the real NBA one day. Hence, they partnered with Take-Two Interactive and created a NBA esports league.

That’s an understandable approach. But it comes with opportunity cost. The Forbes article hints at it:

…the league is not guaranteed to be a success among potential spectators. It has been noted that less than 1% of gaming is in professional esports. Furthermore, the most popular esports games multiplayer online battle arena (MOBAs) like League of Legends and Dota 2 as well as shooting games such as Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. Actual sport-style esports games, i.e. NBA 2K, are much less proven at this point-in-time.

You can approach the rising popularity of esports and the market opportunity that comes with it from two angles: Either you create an experience based on the users’ preferences, or you try to replicate your product in another domain.

There is a recent analogy to this: The development of internet business. The first online businesses were mostly emulations of existing business models on the web. It took years for people to find out that the internet is a different animal that allows (and demands) new approaches. Those, of course, were almost exclusively the brainchild of new companies.

Whether the same is true with regards to esports remains to be seen. It might turn out to work just as the sports business. But there is a chance it might not. The NBA’s strategy might work just fine. After all, they have the financial resources to create a league that appeals to players and fans alike. Also, the NBA might regard the new league as an opportunity to learn the esports business in an on-brand environment. Later, they could then transfer those learning to other projects.

But I at least wonder whether it wouldn’t be more promising to invest in an established esports gaming IP like League of Legends and — using your sports business know-how and relationships — drive revenue growth. At the same time, it would allow the NBA to learn the particularities of esports from an already proven product.

It’s too early for a verdict. For now, it’s definitively a good sign that the NBA is serious about esports. It speaks to the forward-thinking mindest the league developed under Adam Silver. That said, it’s going to be interesting to see if the NBA’s esports strategy is inspired by the Jazz or the Rockets. That is: Is the league’s playbook defensive or offensive in nature? For now it looks like the former. We will see if that’s enough to win big in esports. After all, defense rarely wins championships in new markets.