Activision Blizzard is launching a new eSports league this year centered around the team-based, first person shooter Overwatch, and it will be paying its players a minimum of $50,000 a year plus health insurance and retirement benefits.

"Players in the Overwatch League, set to launch later this year, will also get at least 50 percent of all performance bonuses earned by their team," the company said in a statement Wednesday.

"Total bonuses distributed in the first season will be $3.5 million, according to Activision, with at least $1 million going to the season champion." That comes from a report by Eben Novy-Williams and Christopher Palmeri of Philly.com.

Besides the fact that Street Fighter's Laura Matsuda and Overwatch's Sombra are probably the same character, this doesn't directly impact the fighting game genre, which is definitely a few wagons back on the eSports caravan.

That said, with Street Fighter growing in popularity to the point of air time on cable television for events like EVO and TBS' Eleague, this boom for one of eSports' forefront titles surely organizes the tea leaves for the potential future for fighters.

The Capcom Pro Tour currently boasts $500,000 yearly total for payouts and prizes while Eleague dished out $250,000 over a two month period. While these numbers don't quite stack up to those of League of Legends or Counter Strike: GO, they do represent a massive increase from where the FGC was just three or four years ago.

Indeed other fighting game titles such as Injustice 2, Tekken 7 and Killer Instinct have followed in suit with the Championship Series, World Tour and Ultra Tour respectively.

With Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite just over a month and a half from release, we're holding out for Capcom to announce some sort of Pro Tour for the latest installment in the iconic Versus series.

With organizations like Rick Fox's Echo Fox jumping in to support players from Street Fighter, Tekken 7, Injustice 2, Super Smash Bros. for Wii U and Melee, the FGC continues to chug along down the pro gaming path.

What do you foresee for the future of fighting games in eSports? How long, if ever, until we see fighting players making $50k salaries?