Dallas, Houston join esports league

PHILADELPHIA—Dave Scott is quick to note he wasn’t at Comcast Spectacor when the company sold the Philadelphia 76ers six years ago.

The NBA franchise Comcast Spectacor sold for about $280 million in October 2011 was valued this year by Forbes at $800 million and could probably sell for more— the Houston Rockets recently sold for $2.2 billion.

Scott, the chief executive officer at Comcast Spectacor, joined the company in 2013 following a 20-year tenure at Comcast Cable.

“I know (76ers owner) Josh Harris is a happy camper with what’s going on,” Scott said, with a laugh. “But we have a real good relationship with those guys.” Comcast Spectacor owns the Philadelphia Flyers and the home arena for the NBA and NHL teams, the Wells Fargo Center.

Now, the company owns an esports franchise. Philadelphia and teams from Dallas and Houston have joined the inaugural season of the esports Overwatch League. There will be 12 franchises representing cities in Asia, Europe and North America in the competitive video gaming league set to start later this year.

Team Envy (Dallas) and OpTic Gaming (Houston) also were announced Wednesday with Philadelphia as the new franchises.

The league begins with exhibition matches in December and the regular season runs from January to July. All games will be held at Blizzard Arena Los Angeles in Burbank, California.

Scott said research showed there are more than 300,000 Overwatch video game players in the market, fueling the buy into the league.

“We think this is the right place to do it,” he said.

“One of the big considerations of working with Overwatch was the longevity of their games and product,” Scott said.