There’s a new sports team coming to the city of Vancouver.
An eSports team that is. According to a report from ESPN’s Jacob Wolf, the Aqulini Investment Group, the Vancouver Canucks ownership group headed by Francesco Aquilini, has bought an expansion slot from Activision Blizzard, the company that owns the popular OverWatch League.
According to Wolf, sources told ESPN earlier this year that slot teams were being sold from $35 million to $60 million. With Vancouver and Chengdu, China, receiving teams, the league is now up to 20 teams.
For those unfamiliar with the game, it’s an FPS (first-person shooter) game available on Xbox, PlayStation 4 and PC that features teams of six going toe-to-toe with the objective to take out your opponents.
Other cities across the world that were granted a squad include Atlanta, Washington, Toronto, Paris and Guangzhou, Hangzhou. Other sports owners to get involved in the league include New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft (Kraft Group), the New York Mets sister company (Sterling VC), the Philadelphia Flyers and Los Angeles Rams ownership group (Comcast Spectacor), Arsenal F.C. and the Denver Nuggets owners (Kroenke family).
Back in August, the ownership group hosted a gaming convention for DOTA 2’s The International 2018 that sold out Rogers Arena, the Canucks home stadium.
The Aqulini family purchased the NLL’s Vancouver Stealth under their Canucks Sports & Entertainment group this past June. and will host the lacrosse team at Rogers Arena.
