During E3, Polygon sat down with the Electronic Sports League (ESL) Vice President Craig Levine to discuss the organization’s upcoming plans. If you live in the U.S. and haven’t heard of the ESL, then you should know that the ESL hopes to change that.
The ESL wants to become a household name in the U.S. in order to expand their global audience. “What’s unique about ESL is that we’re the only global e-sports network out there… we have studios in Italy, the U.S., Cologne is another big one, Moscow, Poland, Beijing — so, it’s really a global company that’s providing content,” Levine told Polygon. “Gaming has a global audience.”
According to Levine, the ESL has a U.S. based studio, but they’ve yet to put together a huge, stadium event there. By churning out more content from their U.S. studio, the ESL hopes to include Americans in their global audience expansion. “Just like you’d come home on a Tuesday, turn on your TV and watch an NBA game, you can do that with ESL and Twitch,” said Levine.
The ESL has some lofty goals. Hopefully the U.S. can gradually accept e-sports as a household name alongside their favorite sports.