The NFL just closed a deal with Verizon that nets the American football organization $21 million for the broadcast rights to a single game, per a Wall Street Journal report. This deal comes following a similar deal in 2015 when Yahoo handed over $15 million for a Jaguars-Bills matchup. The only problem? Yahoo’s game only attracted an average of 2.36 million viewers—a far cry short of the around 20 million average that NFL game typically receive.

[perfectpullquote align=”right” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]Esports companies seem to be leaving money on the vine by not valuing their streams more.[/perfectpullquote]

So why throw down big money on such a small return? Well, per Verizon’s VP of Content Erin McPherson, it’s all about “super premium content.” The exclusivity of the deal gives Verizon a chance to show off its video platforms—namely AOL—but also a mobile video platform called go90. NFL’s senior vice president of digital media business development, Vishal Shah, also chimed in asking, “Are we reaching incremental audiences? Are we reaching the millennial demo? What we want to continue to learn is who is consuming the live games.”

Well, Mr. Shah, look no further than esports.

It’s important to note that Yahoo’s Jags-Bills game only attracted 15 million unique viewers, but as many have noted, the Yahoo homepage and Tumblr all auto-played the game while it was broadcasting, potentially skewing those numbers upward. The growth of online streaming is no lie, and it’s fine to want to be a part of it—but manufactured success isn’t real.

Comparing the Yahoo game to esports, then, is important in analyzing how broadcast rights are used in the esports industry. The current high point is IEM Katowice 2017, which attracted 46 million unique viewers over the course of the weekend. Some caveats here: it was over a weekend, not just the 4 hours of an NFL game, and it was an international audience, which can turn off some advertisers—you don’t want to market to an audience with no access to your product.

[perfectpullquote align=”left” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]Big broadcast rights deals may not be quite in esports’ future just yet—but my guess is that it’s coming sooner than you think.[/perfectpullquote]

Still, its definitely comparable—and makes one wonder why ESL isn’t announcing similar multi-million dollar deals for its broadcasting rights. Riot Games, whose World Championship event record isn’t far from IEM’s, just signed a $200 million deal with MLBAM… but that’s over two years, and potentially hundreds of games. Bottom line, esports companies seem to be leaving money on the vine by not valuing their streams more.

The likely answer, though, is that these companies value fan interaction and revenue gains down the road than up-front broadcasting cash. Many of the biggest esports tournaments are being run by game developers, whose business is to get people buying games and in-game content, not selling broadcast rights. Still, for esports-exclusive companies like ESL, broadcast rights should be more in focus—and IEM’s 46 million unique viewer weekend is a great talking point to attract potential buyers.

Big broadcast rights deals may not be quite in esports’ future just yet—but my guess is that it’s coming sooner than you think.