ELEAGUE, Turner’s esports tournament branch, currently run Counter Strike and Overwatch tournaments which has sparked questions as to whether ELEAGUE is exclusive to FPS games or not.

Turner Sports’ executive vice president and chief content officer Craig Barry, during a press conference ahead of ELEAGUE’s CSGO Season 1 finals, had this to say: “Esports games like Dota 2 or League of Legends, it’s a much steeper learning curve, whereas Counter-Strike is a FPS; a sniper rifle is a sniper rifle and a pistol is a pistol.

“I’m simplifying it obviously, since understanding the economy in the game can be complicated, but ultimately Counter-Strike was the most digestible game for the widest audience.

“If you’re asking if we feel exclusive to FPS, the answer is no, but because we’re kinda new in the space, we wanted to make sure that we were approaching it for the widest audience as possible.”

Craig Barry also commented on their expansion in to Overwatch and their partnership with Activision Blizzard: “When Overwatch launched we all looked at each other and kinda said, ‘Hey, we’d like to be in this space.’

“We’d like to try this out, take our resources, pair them with Blizzard’s and see what we can bring to the community.”

Christina Alejandra, ELEAGUE’s general manager, also commented: “Overwatch was a natural progression for us, but I would be remiss to say that we’re not looking at other franchises that aren’t first person shooters.

“You could see a fighting game up there, you could see a MOBA series up there.”