The NBA2K Championship on ESPN

As ESPN is empowering these walks down memory lane via nostalgia, the system is also gearing up NBA MT Coins and conditioning viewers for the long run. This convergence of TV programming and electronic is observed in an assortment of ways, including notions such as the NBA Horse Tournament. But maybe the most revolutionary programming was the 16-NBA 2K participant NBA 2K gamers Tournament.

ESPN recently hosted a series of live-streamed NBA 2K matchups featuring NBA NBA 2K players such as Kevin Durant, Devin Booker, Montrezl Harrell, Deandre Ayton, and Patrick Beverley. It's the first exploration into esports -- a genre that is expected to have over 557 million worldwide viewers by 2021 of the network. And with most of the population at home hours-watched has chased by roughly 17 percent in comparison with the previous quarter for platforms such as Twitch.

It's important to note that this A-list tournament is simply an adaptation of the existing NBA 2K League, which has captured some serious fire to the backs of emerging stars like MamaImDatMan, Drake Griffin, also ZDS, to mention a couple. According to the league itself, NBA 2K20 articles has created over 276 million viewpoints on YouTube, and over 8 million hours viewed on Twitch across hundreds of channels.

The NBA 2K League already has a following. But earlier this year when the quarantine and advisories began to roll out, it had been exposed to the masses. For example adding almost 750,000 YouTube readers in February according to influencer marketing platform CreatorIQ, it has been growing across programs in 2020.

The NBA2K League attracts a younger audience with over 75 percent of the audience under 24, to the table, based on CreatorIQ. And the esports community, generally speaking, could be considered the next generation of sports fans -- that could help ESPN weather this storm, but place itself to the future. Additionally, the gaming community has a unique set of interests in style, technology, music, and art, opening up the programming and promotion opportunities to an entirely new faculty of brands in regards to esports integrations with network TV.

"The NBA2K Championship on ESPN proved there is an appetite for and acceptance of esports content on the TV display, but it really only scratched the surface of the options," explained Ed Tomasi, the managing director of esports at culture and lifestyle platform Subnation. "Integrations similar to this will not only usher in another wave of sport, but the next wave of forward-thinking brands trying to connect with these cross legged sports fans and customers."

Without any sign on when live sports return -- and when they will even have fans in attendance to Buy 2K MT when that occurs -- esports generates the nearest thing for audiences and brands appearing to scratch a competitive itch with movie content. As the quarantine proceeds, we'll see how ESPN and other sports content founders seem to embrace esports and this new dynamic in much more interesting ways.