Former Fox Sports exec joining Activision to lead Major League Gaming
Former Fox Sports executive Pete Vlastelica is joining Activision's Major League Gaming division, beefing up the publisher's tranditional sports knowledge as it forges ahead into esports.
Vlastelica, who was a vice president of digital at Fox Sports, is now the president and CEO of Activision Blizzard's Major League Gaming division. He joins former ESPN and NFL Network CEO Steve Bornstein, who joined in October 2015 along with MLG co-founder Mike Sepso. MLG was then acquired by Activision Blizzard along other co-founder Sundance DiGiovanni two months later.
At MLG, Vlastelica will be working on expanding and enhancing the company's leadership in broadcast, content and distribution, the company said in a press release.
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As individual publishers, Activision and Blizzard have a lot of stake in esports and competitive gaming. Activision owns Call of Duty, one of the most popular first-person shooters in esports, and Blizzard owns StarCraft 2, Heroes of the Storm, Hearthstone and Overwatch, four huge entities that continue to grow in the esports scene.
MLG itself hosts tournaments around the world featuring all sorts of games, even those outside of the Activision Blizzard umbrella like Counter-Strike, Street Fighter and Halo.
Not only is Vlastelica's new position at MLG a sign that Activision Blizzard is still ramping up its esports endeavors with tournaments, it's also a sign of a larger trend of a migration from traditional sports into esports.
NRG Esports is a growing organization with teams competing in multiple games. It's headed by Gerard Kelly and Sacramento Kings co-owners Andy Miller and Mark Mastrov, with Shaquille O'Neal and Alex Rodriguez as investors. Similar organization Echo Fox is owned by Rick Fox, former NBA player.
“I’m joining MLG because of the rare combination of massive digital scale and deep audience engagement around competitive gaming, and because there’s no better category of live streaming video content out there,” Vlastelica said in a statement. “It’s clear that video games are the future of sports."
