National Basketball Association

NBA 2K16's first eSports event started with Kobe and ended with $250,000

Published Jun. 3, 2016 3:00 p.m. ET

Andrew Lynch

As the clock ticked to zero, the winning team flexed to the crowd, embraced each other and dribbled out the final seconds before the championship would officially be theirs.

Just over an hour after Kobe Bryant and Rick Fox introduced Paul George as the cover athlete for NBA 2K17, the two best NBA 2K16 teams on the planet took part in the first "Road to the Finals," a 2K eSports event with a $250,000 first prize and actual championship rings on the line:

Look at the ring the two teams are playing for pic.twitter.com/uqwhLfDed6
— NBA 2K 2K17 (@NBA2K) June 2, 2016

The Drewkerbockers, who focused on defense, rebounding and size, took down the long-range specialists of Team GFG to claim the prize. And in true sports style, they received a giant check, which was presented to them by George as an adoring crowd -- yes, there was a spectator section -- congratulated 2K's inaugural champions.

If the video game franchise knows its fans, though, this will be the beginning. According to 2K senior vice president of basketball operations Jason Argent, this event came about because consumers wanted it.

That meant putting a mode into 2K16 -- the Pro-Am -- that could facilitate a structured, competitive environment. Rather than pick existing NBA teams and players, each gamer used their MyPlayer and joined with four other gamers using their MyPlayers to form a cohesive basketball team. When we talked to the champion Drewkerbockers after their win, it was striking the way the language matched up with what you might hear in an NBA postgame press conference.

Antone Edwards (gamertag: Tone_WestAdams20) repeatedly credited "his guards" for jumping passing lanes and creating turnovers that led to easy buckets on the other end. Those guards, conversely, praised Edwards for his work in the post as their defensive anchor. It was like talking to the 2004 Detroit Pistons of video games, who'd just defeated a team most observers considered far more talented and heavy favorites to take home the title -- and a quarter-million dollars.

The relationship between eSports and the NBA isn't a coincidence. For Argent, there's a distinct connection between professional gaming in general and basketball that speaks to the fact that both are attracting a young, diverse audience:

For now, the Pro-Am mode and 2K's efforts to crash the eSprots party have earned a dedicated core of fans. But as Argent notes, it's still a rather small segment of the overall 2K and video game player bases. How does 2K go about changing that? It's about giving the players what they want:

And therein lies the distinction for sports simulation games like 2K in the eSports scene. The biggest professional video games in the world are also the least accessible. If you don't already know what LoL is, or if you're not already one of the top Counter-Strike players in the world, you're probably not going to make the leap to the professional level.

That's true to an extent with 2K, too -- GFG, the Road to the Finals runners-up, have been playing together for five years -- but we all play games like 2K and Madden; they're a much more communal experience than some of the more popular franchises. The key moving forward is how you encourage that robust online community to take the plunge into eSports.

For Argent, it comes back to listening to the players and letting them know that these things exist:

If 2K can make inroads into the eSports community, it should be a mutually beneficial relationship. It's harder to argue that a sports video game isn't sports, regardless of how close-minded a person might be to the idea of professional video games. Having NBA All-Stars at your events lends an air of mainstream appeal that eSports hasn't quite yet achieved in the United States.

Just ask the Drewkerbockers, who insisted that their 2K victory was just as meaningful (and just as stressful) as any basketball championship they'd won on the court. To those who question whether eSports are legitimate, the message was short and sweet:

A quarter-million dollars from playing one of the most popular games on the planet? That's definitely giving the people what they want.