ESL pushes for more U.S. programming

The ESL — Electronic Sports League — is a world-wide e-sports network. It’s not a household name in the U.S. yet, but according to Vice President Craig Levine, that’s going to change soon, as the league is making a huge push to bring more content to U.S. e-sports fans.

I was able to speak with Levine at the Twitch booth at E3 this week, where he laid out the plans the league has for expanding their reach into the US, and making intelligent use of the popularity of Twitch's streaming platform.

"What’s unique about ESL is that we're the only global e-sports network out there… we have studios in Italy, the U.S., Cologne is another big one, Moscow, Poland, Beijing — so, it's really a global company that’s providing content. Gaming has a global audience."

With plans to put on huge stadium events here in the U.S., as well as push content out of its U.S. studios, ESL is reaching for the American audience.

"With ESL, that's our philosophy. Either we go big — with these mega events, in stadiums in Poland or Frankfurt, or soon to come to the U.S.," Levine said. "Or we focus on high quality, consistent content that we generate out of our studio."

"We have a studio up in Burbank now, it's an event center, where we bring together the best players and best teams for live competitions, we broadcast content out on Twitch — pro gaming matches that are happening all year long."

Levine said ESL wants to make it easy to be an e-sports fan — no matter where you live.

"Just like you'd come home on a Tuesday, turn on your TV and watch an NBA game, you can do that with ESL and Twitch," he said.