‘NBA 2K eLeague’ is the NBA’s official eSports league

By Gabe Gurwin Published February 9, 2017

NBA 2K17 - Accolades

With constant debate on whether or not eSports qualify as “real” sports, one major athletic league appears to be signaling the affirmative. The “NBA 2K eLeague,” a partnership between the NBA and 2K Sports, debuts next year, and it will be the first eSports league officially operated by the NBA or any other professional sports league.

The NBA 2K eLeague, which will commence next year, will feature teams individually operated by separate NBA franchises. Much like the actual NBA season, the league will consist of a regular season, playoffs, and a championship, but each team will only consist of five players using custom user-created characters — there won’t be any substitutions here. Teams are expected to be announced within the next few months.

Recommended Videos

“Through the NBA 2K series, which is renowned throughout the world for capturing the authenticity of the NBA and the passion of its fans, we have a proven track record of highly successful collaboration,” said Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick. “With this new venture, Take-Two and the NBA aim to fuel the accelerating growth of eSports and take the thrill of competition to exciting new heights.”

The NBA sees the league as an opportunity to attract a new demographic of viewers to not only watch eSports, but also become fans of basketball.

“The large part of my mission is to grow the game of basketball,” said NBA commissioner Adam Silver to the Associated Press. “There’s going to be an opportunity for this first-of-a-kind league to attract a group of gamers who might be playing some other game.”

Though the NBA 2K eLeague is the first to be made an “official” eSport by a professional sports organization, it isn’t the first time we’ve seen a game publisher former a partnership with one. Back in December, the NFL partnered with Electronic Arts to launch programming based on the Madden series, airing footage of the “Madden Classic” event on NFL Network, as well as the Madden NFL Club Series, a program featuring live tournaments “produced by participating NFL teams.”

Topics

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Gabe Gurwin has been playing games since 1997, beginning with the N64 and the Super Nintendo. He began his journalism career…

Computing

Why owning the best PC hardware didn’t make me a better gamer

Logitech G Pro X mechanical gaming keyboard.

Give it up, guys. It turns out you can have every possible advantage going for you as a gamer -- the most powerful PC, the fastest gaming monitor, the lightest of gaming mice, and the most low-profile of gaming keyboards - but if you just aren't very good, none of it makes much of a difference.

I really hoped it would, too. I've recently been dabbling in some competitive FPS (first-person shooter) play on my PC and decided to give myself every leg up my combined salary and review sample back catalog could manage. And though I'm sure it helped, I didn't receive the advantage I was hoping for.
The man
Let me set the stage for you. I'm a mid-30s, typically single-player PC gamer who hasn't taken competitive gaming seriously since the launch of Rocket League. I used to play Unreal Tournament 2004 in my teens, along with Half Life mods, some Counter-Strike 1.6, and a little Halo when we could get enough original Xboxes and TVs together. More recently, I've dabbled in the odd Call of Duty single-player campaign -- and I loved Evolve while it lasted -- but I haven't played much in the way of PVP (player versus player) FPS games for a decade or more.

Gaming

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 Gamescom trailer confirms delay, but looks fantastic

A Stalker from Stalker 2 looks off in the distance with a radioactive symbol behind him.

At Gamescom 2023, Ukrainian game developer GSC Game World gave another update on its highly anticipated first-person shooter horror game S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl. It did push the game back until next year, but we also got our best look yet at gameplay in a new trailer.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl — Bolts & Bullets Trailer
The trailer begins with the player emerging from a sewer into the game's irradiated wasteland. We see the player slowly move around a few different environments before shooting at a supernatural enemy in a facility. The trailer only gets more intense from there as we see the player kit out their gun before taking on a variety of enemies, from humans to dogs to more disgusting-looking supernatural enemies. At the end of the trailer, we learn that S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 will now launch in the first quarter of 2024 and that preorders are finally open.
This long-awaited sequel to a PC cult classic has had a very turbulent development. It was originally supposed to be released in April 2022, but has gotten delayed multiple times due to development challenges and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Some of its developers are fighting with the Ukrainian Armed Forces, while others moved to the Czech Republic to finish the game. On top of all of that, GSC Game World has faced multiple cyberattacks and game leaks it attributes to Russia.

Despite all of the challenges GSC Game World has faced in the development of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2, the game seems to be shaping up nicely. This new trailer is full of intense action and very atmospheric moments, and previews from people playing the game at Gamescom 2023 are positive. Hopefully, GSC Game World can take this positive momentum and meet its new release window.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl will launch sometime in the first quarter of 2024 for PC and Xbox Series X/S.

Gaming

You can get NBA 2K23 and more with PS Plus this June

Donovan Mitchell in NBA 2K23.

The three games that make up PlayStation Plus Essential's June lineup have been revealed. There are any major console exclusives or no releases included; instead, there's NBA 2K23, a Jurassic Park tie-in title, and an indie game inspired by classic samurai films.

NBA 2K23 needs little introduction, as it's the latest entry in 2K's long-running, annualized basketball video game series. This latest entry stands out from the ones that came before by deepening the controls an AI further, as well as adding a Jordan Challenge mode that chronicles Michael Jordan's career. Beware of some pretty intrusive microtransactions, though.
Also available this month is Jurassic World Evolution 2, a theme park management game that swaps out roller coasters and other festivities for dinosaur-related attractions. The management genre is a surprisingly great fit for the Jurassic Park IP, and this game even provides a bit of story context to fill in the gap between Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom and Jurassic World Dominion.
Finally, there's Trek to Yomi, a very cinematic indie game. It's stylized like a classic black-and-white samurai action movie, which makes sense as it's telling a revenge story about a pupil trying to avenge their dying master. If you didn't play this game through Game Pass, it's now available on a Sony subscription service as well.
This certainly isn't the most exciting game lineup, but it still provides a wide variety of gaming experiences. NBA 2K23, Jurassic World Evolution 2, and Trek to Yomi will be available through PlayStation Plus from June 6 until July 3. Make sure you download May's PS Plus games before then too.