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Brendan Donohue, the managing director of NBA’s forthcoming 2K Sports League, has said that the NBA could go further in its esports plans and work with different, non-basketball, titles.
This comes from his conversation with Esports Pro at Gamescom.
Donohue has said that at the moment the NBA is “super focused” on the 2K league, but that thoughts about other leagues, other games, have definitely surfaced.
“We’re obviously very careful with the NBA and 2K game,” said Donohue. “But I think we could see ourselves leveraging our expertise and our ability to run a league and taking on other titles in the future.”
However, each game will require its own unique approach, something Donohue is all too aware of. “We’ve gotten a pretty clear-headed view here (with the 2K Sports League) and we want to be respectful to this community and not just treat it like any other esports contest. We also can’t just take the NBA model and place this over the top of it, which would be a big mistake.”
“We’re in a unique spot where everyone knows what basketball is, which means it’s easy to watch and appreciate. I love League of Legends and Overwatch, and they’re awesome games, but what works for them isn’t going to work for us, and if we decide to take a swing on titles like this later, we’ll have to mix up our approach again.”
