This is the biggest one. The 5 players per each NBA team won't be playing as the team's current starters but rather avatars of the players themselves.

Essentially unknown players for now.

You could make the same case that the players in EA's Madden Championship Series or FIFA Ultimate team are not close to the top eSports players across League of Legends, Counter-Strike or Call of Duty in terms of brand recognition.

But there's a big difference as both Madden and FIFA have real Pro Athletes in the game.

Watching the Madden Bowl and seeing ex-NFL athletes like Randy Moss or Ricky Williams "playing" again was fun to see. The same goes for FIFA and seeing superstars like Ronaldo being used in the game. Further, Madden Bowl was only 20% lower in TV Viewership than ELEAGUE's monstrous Counter-Strike Major.

In one of the earliest articles I wrote back in May 2016, I looked at "The Challenge of Sports Games as eSports". There's the inherent difficulty of "watching the real Tom Brady" vs. "watch someone play a virtual Tom Brady" - but that's infinitely better than watching Tom from Tennessee.

/02 DRAFT, RECRUITING AND LOCATION