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ESPN airs 12 hours of esports, including Rocket League, NBA 2K and Madden

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ESPN airs 12 hours of esports, including Rocket League, NBA 2K and Madden

ESPN will air 12 hours of esports broadcasts on April 5, and will transition to NBA 2K, Madden NFL 20, and Rocket League tournaments to fill the void left by traditional sports leagues on pause.

“ESPN Esports Day” is a marathon of live events and recorded esports coverage that aired on ESPN2 last year, according to a press release. The marathon starts three hours in advance Madden NFL 20 content, including summaries of the Madden Classic, Club championships and Challenge tournaments.

The Madden block will be followed by the F1 Esports Virtual Grand Prix, a live race with F1 drivers behind the virtual wheel. Rocket League will follow with ESPN2 to host the Season 8 World Championship Grand Final and lead to the highly anticipated NBA 2K tournament, which brings 16 NBA players to participate in an event with 16 braces. ESPN’s esports marathon concludes with a repeated presentation of the EXP Apex Legends Pro-Am last July.

Esports has grown significantly in recent years, but the industry has seen tremendous interest in recent weeks. Craig Levine, global chief strategy officer for the CS: GO ESL Pro League, previously told The edge that “since other sports and entertainment have gone dark, we have inadvertently benefited from it.”

Professional athletes who cannot train flock to Twitch and YouTube to stream themselves playing virtual versions of the sports that made them famous. F1 driver Lando Norris took part in a virtual and shorter version of the Australian Grand Prix with F1 2019 on March 22. The race alone attracted 70,000 simultaneous viewers on Norris ‘Twitch channel, with a total of about 175,000 people watching the race, combining Norris’ channel and others at one point.

One of the major streaming platforms, Twitch has seen impressive growth as more people spend time at home. The platform went from 982 million hours in February to more than 1.1 billion hours in March, according to live streaming tools and service provider StreamElements. That’s a 20 percent growth in viewers. Letting professional athletes compete in virtual tournaments and taking their fans to sites like Twitch is a win.

It is clear that ESPN wants to participate in that action. The network has had for years, but with no other sports to work against, this is the time of esports to shine. The full schedule for ESPN2’s esports marathon can be seen on the network’s website.