Riot Games’ multiplayer online battle arena game League of Legends will be featured in HBO comedy drama series Ballers. A video teaser for the show’s last season was shared on the LoL Esports Twitter during the 2019 League of Legends Championship Series Summer Split finals between Cloud9 and Team Liquid.
This season on @BallersHBO… #Ballers @TheRock pic.twitter.com/rIsJkpVQCl
— LoL Esports (@lolesports) August 25, 2019
Ballers on HBO
According to a Reddit post by Riot Games employee Anton “JokrCantSpell” Ferraro, the MOBA game will be showcased in the Ballers show during the entire season and not just one episode. The video teaser shows Dwayne Johnson and the rest of the cast discussing the esports and competitive gaming industry. Former NBA star Rick Fox is also featured briefly.
Ballers premiered on HBO in June of 2015. The series created by Stephen Levinson features Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Rob Corddry, John David Washington, Omar Miller, and more. Retired NFL superstar Spencer Strasmore, played by Johnson, works as a financial manager for other football players. Season five will feature Charles Greene trying to pursue a career path in esports rather than focusing on football. Greene, who is played by Omar Miller, has been having trouble transitioning out of the NFL and sees esports as something interesting to pursue.
Esports industry
The first sentence in the video teaser for Ballers mentions that esports is “overhyped and overvalued.” Despite huge prize pools in Dota 2’s The International and the Fortnite World Cup, many reports describe that the majority of esports organizations aren’t profitable. Multi-million-dollar investment can be seen with organizations that may not have any brand value to compensate for the valuations.
Some organizations can afford to go negative, just like how most startup companies are unprofitable. However, even though 80 percent of IPOs in 2018 were for companies that lost money, this number is most likely higher still in esports. There is no question whether a correction in the esports industry will happen. The question is when it will happen.
Have you ever watched the Ballers comedy drama series? What other integrations can you see with television and esports? Keep up with Daily Esports for all of your League of Legends coverage.
