Activision has confirmed the rumor they had purchased Major League Gaming lock, stock and barrel in a press release issued tonight.
The release formally announced, ”Activision Blizzard, Inc.today announced the acquisition of the business of Major League Gaming (MLG). MLG is a leader in creating and streaming premium live gaming events, organizing professional competitions and running competitive gaming leagues. The acquisition expands Activision Blizzard’s reach across the rapidly-growing esports ecosystem by adding proven live streaming capabilities and technologies to the Activision Blizzard Media Networks division, led by former ESPN CEO Steve Bornstein and MLG Co-founder Mike Sepso.”
Activision went on to stated that all of the property’s divisions, including MLG.tv, MLG Pro Circuit and GameBattles, will continue to operate as normal with the same partners and publishers across the industry as before, meaning that despite now being an Activision holding it’ll continue to air broadcasts of rival publisher games.
MLG claims to have over 100 million unique viewers, with a projection of over 300M viewers by 2017. However, the company was in serious debt, and most of the $48M spent to acquire it will be used to pay off debt. This is something that investors are annoyed at, since it means their shares won’t see any of the money.
Call of Duty is expected to be the featured eSport on MLG’s docket with Activision as the parent company.
