Houston Outlaws
Playing video games often gets a bad rap, but as we have learned over the past few years, there is some serious money to be made in both live-streaming and Esports.
According to a March Wall Street Journal report, companies like Electronic Arts, Activision Blizzard, Ubisoft, and Take-Two pay as much as $50,000 an hour for top celebrity gamers to conduct real-time broadcasts, or live streams of their new video games.
Just a few days ago we reported about how 15-year-old Jaden Ashman became a millionaire in one day by dominating the Fortnite World Cup after his mom threw away his Xbox, and how 16-year-old Kyle “Bugha” Giersdorf won THREE MILLION DOLLARS at the same event.
So yeah, there is money… to… be… made. Serious money.
How serious? On Wednesday, ESPN reported that a Houston real estate investor named Lee Zieben just agreed to purchase the Houston Outlaws Overwatch League team from Immortals Gaming Club for a total deal valued at 40 MILLION DOLLARS.
If completed as expected, Zieben will pay $30 million in cash and securities and assume the $10 million debt in remaining payments to the Overwatch League for the Houston Outlaws franchise slot, sources said.
But wait, there’s more. The reason Immortals Gaming Club is selling the Houston Outlaws is because in June they acquired Infinite Esports & Entertainment, the parent company of OpTic Gaming and the Outlaws.
The deal for Infinite saw Immortals guarantee payments of $35 million to $45 million worth of cash and equity share to Texas Esports — backed by Texas Rangers owners Neil Leibman and Ray Davis and Houston Astros minority owner John Havens — and Aurelius Esports, led by former Infinite president Chris Chaney. Immortals also assumed debts Infinite owed, including the Outlaws’ Overwatch League payments and OpTic’s remaining franchise fees to the League of Legends Championship Series, totaling the deal to an enterprise value of over $100 million.
Immortals also had to sell the Outlaws because they already the Los Angeles Valiant in the Overwatch League — a league which the Outlaws entered in 2017 by purchasing a slot to compete for 20 MILLION DOLLARS.
I don’t know about you, but me and my kids are going to be playing a shitton of video games this weekend.