For years Esports has been the focal point of new investments. With an exponential Growth rate, we are seeing esports companies being prime investment hotspots for new organisations looking to enter esports.

According to a several reports, Esports has a growth rate of nearly 94%. This has proved to be true and in many cases the growth of esports has surpassed expectations. With easing regulations and sufficient mainstream media coverage, esports is on the rise and moving fast. A recent Goldman Sachs client note mentioned the positive outlook for Activision Blizzard. This note did not even take into consideration the $140 million investment into the Overwatch league. Just assuming sales and earnings from the upcoming title releases is sufficient to sustain the growth of certain gaming companies such as Activision Blizzard. And then there is always the possibility of Overwatch League being a runaway success.

We have seen several NBA, Motorsport and Football teams invest into esports teams. They have either sought to invest passively or downright buyout certain esports teams. But with their lack of expertise and experience in esports, it can prove tough for these companies and teams to thrive in esports. That is why we are slowly seeing a lot more mergers and tie-ups with traditional esports teams. This helps the investors to own esports teams while allowing people proficient in esports to help with the daily activities.

Twitch

One of the biggest contributors to the growth of esports is Twitch. The growth of Twitch has been one of the driving factors behind the growth of esports. Twitch as a company started off as a live streaming website, not limited to gaming. However when one of the verticals within Twitch ( The gaming content ) started taking off in a big way, they decided to make the website exclusively for gaming. Over the years, Twitch has grown and won over competition from other services such as Hitbox, Azubu etc. With Youtube, the biggest library of esports content also entering live streaming, Twitch has a true competitor now. But the brand in Twitch will always be synonymous with esports live streaming. We had NBA Commissioner mentioning the lessons that can be learnt from Twitch as viewership numbers in traditional sports keep declining.

NBA G League – Twitch

Starting December 15th, Twitch will start broadcasting games of the official NBA Minor League. The first matchup to be broadcasted on Twitch will be the Austin Spurs – Rio Grande Valley Vipers matchup. The NBA Minor League is an entry point league which has featured some well known stars in the past. This broadcast comes into full circle as we have seen the platform stream sports leagues in the past. Twitch, which is a subsidiary of Amazon has been known to broadcast Sports streams in the recent past. Amazon owns the rights for Thursday Night Football and since December 7th, the NFL’s Thursday Game is shown live on Twitch and Amazon Prime. However Thursday Night Live is something that is shown on multiple channels including NBC. G League matches will be shown exclusively on Twitch, six games a week. The remaining matches are still available for viewing on Facebook live.

Twitch has ensured that the sports streams will not only be bland streams without any information available to the viewers. Using the Extensions tool, viewers will be able to track multiple features of the particular game. These include statistics such as player statistics, team and league statistics. They can also earn ‘loyalty points’ based on their viewing history. This serves as an incentive for viewers to switch to the Twitch platform over the traditional cable TV.

Will people Switch to Twitch?

The question in everyone’s mind is : Will viewers be interested in watching G League on Twitch? Judging from the top stream categories on Twitch we see IRL being one of the top viewed categories consistently. IRL stands for In Real Life, which is basically a short for all things not related to gaming. When Twitch began enforcing strict rules about streaming only gaming content ( and not gambling websites, or just sitting idle and talking) ; there was a huge demand for a category like IRL. This category provides a way for streamers to connect with their followers and subscribers in situations outside of gaming. They include going to Twitchon, Gaming expos, Events or anything and everything not related to gaming as well. At that time, it was touted to be Twitch’s foray into Youtube’s real estate.

NBA G League on Twitch will partner with some of the favorite streamers such as GoldGlove, Akademiks and VernNotice during the first week. Watching the NBA G League matches with these streamers would be something that viewers will enjoy immensely. Getting to know an alternate style of casting and analysis of the games definitely proves to be something that has shown to draw huge viewership numbers. Subsequent weeks will have different streamers on board, the full list can be found here.

Will you watch the NBA G league live on Twitch, a league that has given us stars such as Jeremy Lin & Shaun Livingston? Let us know in comments below.

Source : Twitch Blog