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TSN Senior Correspondent

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Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment Ltd. is getting its own eSports team.

TSN has learned MLSE is informing the National Basketball Association on Friday that it plans to begin a basketball eSports team. It’s a move that allows Canada’s largest sports company to gain a toehold in a fast-growing but difficult to decipher industry of paid video game competition.

MLSE’s decision comes months after the NBA said it would partner with Take-Two Interactive Software, the video game company that makes the popular “NBA 2K” series, to produce the NBA 2K eLeague.

The NBA’s new league is scheduled to begin in January 2018 and last for several months. It set a buy-in for teams of $250,000, which MLSE will pay, a source told TSN. The NBA said it expected about half of its 30 teams to field eLeague teams in the inaugural season.

The NBA will hold a draft of esports players and NBA teams may hold open tryouts for additional players, the source told TSN. The Raptors, like other NBA teams, will pay players’ salaries. The Raptors’ eSports players will be housed by MLSE during the season.

The Raptors’ eSports team, like others in the league, will feature five players. It’s unclear whether there will be a regular season and then a playoff. It’s similarly unclear whether the teams will have coaches.

“We will have more information to share regarding schedule and rules in the coming months,” an NBA spokesman wrote in an email to TSN.

The likeness of real NBA players won’t be used in the NBA 2K game. Competitors will design their own on-screen characters. The NBA will hold events, sell tickets, create merchandise and sell sponsorships and licensing rights to the eLeague and its games. Teams will also have the chance to leverage their esports clubs.

“Similar to how the NBA operates, teams will develop their own partnership opportunities,” the NBA spokesman wrote.

ESports is a term relatively new to the sports world. It’s an industry where competitors play video games in leagues and tournaments with millions of dollars in prize money on the line.

Revenue from eSports is expected to surpass $1 billion worldwide by 2018.

MLSE officials have been eyeing the sector for several years. On Aug. 28, 2016, more than 15,000 fans bought tickets to the North American League of Legends Championship Series Summer Finals at the Air Canada Centre. Spectators watched two teams play the League of Legends video game.

MLSE has also watched as other sports teams and owners have made investments in the sector.

Washington Capitals owner Ted Leonsis is a part owner in Team Liquid, an organization that fields rosters in League of Legends, StarCraft and Dota 2. Boston Bruins owner Jeremy Jacobs is a part owner of the team Splyce, whose players are experts at games such as Gears of War and Counter-Strike.

In December, the Houston Rockets hired a director of esports.

Players can make hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. The Halo World Championship in Burbank, Calif., from March 24-26 had a $1 million prize pool. The team that won the tournament, OpTic Gaming, took home $500,000.

One of that team’s players, 20-year-old Canadian Mathew Fiorante, has won $467,587 from 24 tournaments, he told TSN in an interview. “This is my full-time job, Monday to Friday,” he said.

Investors have been drawn to eSports because of how connected young consumers are to video games. The number of eSports fans is expected to grow to 345 million by 2019, up from 148 million this year, research firm NewZoo reported.