Arsenal Owner Seeks to Dominate Russian Video Game Tournaments
- Usmanov's $100 million investment in e-sports takes shape
- ESforce to build arena, host eastern Europe's biggest event
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Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov, who invested $100 million in competitive video-gaming last year, is seeing the money put to work as the company he backs, ESforce, attempts to dominate the growing sport in eastern Europe.
ESforce is hosting eastern Europe’s biggest online-game tournament next month, having lined up Western sponsors and players, according to a statement from the company Monday. It’s also spending $5 million to build an e-sports arena in Moscow for local competitions and buying content rights from teams to parlay into revenue from online broadcasts and sales of both virtual and physical goods.