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At least half of the 30-team league is expected to have their own team when the esports league launches in 2018.
With ambitions to start the recently announced NBA 2K esports league by early 2018, the NBA has placed one of their own, Brendan Donohue, as Managing Director. After originally working with the Atlanta Hawks, Donohue has been in the league office since 2009 where he had been serving as Senior VP/Team Marketing & Business Operations before shifting gears to this new role.
The aspects of his new gig have not fully been outlined, but he will reportedly shape the strategic framework of the league, run the day-to-day operations, and report to a board filled with both NBA and Take-Two Interactive executives.
“I’ve been interested in this space for quite a while,” Donohue said. “It is being able to use what I have been doing on the team side and combine it in a new, explosive space.”
“Explosive space” is a common way to reference the tsunami wave known as esports — nobody truly knows what to do to leverage its popularity on a broader scale quite yet, but high-ranking executives with loads of cash are looking to be involved. That tends to be a sign of good things on the horizon.
At least half of the 30-team league is expected to have their own team when the esports league launches in 2018, and those teams are expected to be announced in the coming weeks, per Donohue.
For now, Donohue is working on building a staff to assist with the groundbreaking launch. The NBA is venturing into unprecedented territory for the four major sports leagues, and it will be fascinating to follow the steps they take to format a structure that is both economically lucrative and appealing to fans.
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