A new esports league, set to kick off in 2019, is looking for teams. The catch is that any candidates must also be real teams in the traditional sports world. That means that many major esports organizations might be excluded.
The League of Professional Esports is the brainchild of Japanese entertainment firm Akatsuki. The biggest names to enlist so far have been Spain’s FC Barcelona and Dutch club Ajax, but Turkey’s Galatasaray and a number of other soccer teams from Japan, Brazil, and Spain are also onboard.
The prize for winning the LPE will be $500,000, but so far the game on which the league will be based hasn’t been named.