CYBERSPORT : BANKING ON BIG NAMES.Byline: Tom Hoffarth One of the most expensive budgetary considerations for the electronic sports Electronic sports, abbreviated e-sports or eSports, is used as a general term to describe the play of video games as a professional sport. Less popular terms include competitive gaming, cybersports, cyber athletics (used by the CPL) and game makers isn't from investing in newer technology. It's hiring the big-named athletes to represent their product. Six-figure deals are the norm for companies like Electronic Arts, Nintendo and Sega searching to lock in high-profile athletes in the highly competitive video game market. EA Sports - which discovered this phenomenon early when it got John Madden to endorse its NFL NFL abbr. National Football League NFL (US) n abbr (= National Football League) → Fußball-Nationalliga games - continued its push at the Electronic Entertainment Expo in Atlanta last week. Introducing its new ``Knockout Kings'' cyberfight game for PlayStation systems, EA Sports trotted out Sugar Ray Leonard Ray Charles Leonard (born May 17, 1956) is a retired American professional boxer. He was one of the leading boxers in the world in the late 1970s and 1980s, winning world titles at multiple weights and engaging in contests with such celebrated opponents as Wilfred Benitez, Thomas and Oscar De La Hoya Oscar de la Hoya (IPA pronunciation: [ˈɑs.kɛɹ dɛ.lɑ.ˈhɔɪ.jɑ][1]) (born February 4, 1973) — nicknamed the Golden Boy , not only as paid salesmen for the demonstration at the convention (Leonard, by the way, beat De La Hoya La Hoya is a municipality located in the province of Salamanca, Castile and León, Spain. According to the 2004 census (INE), the municipality has a population of 30 inhabitants. in the cyber confrontation that included specially-made boxing posters to promote the contest), but the company also paid for exclusive rights to use recreations of Muhammad Ali, Evander Holyfield, Pernell Whitaker, Marvin Hagler, Sugar Shane Mosley and Ray Mancini - 38 famous boxers in all. Leonard, De La Hoya and Mosley worked with EA Sports also as consultants on the game. Recently, Nintendo released its Kobe Braynt NBA NBA abbr. 1. National Basketball Association 2. National Boxing Association NBA (US) n abbr (= National Basketball Association) → Basketball-Dachverband (= game - which did not include Michael Jordan's likeness because his rights fees were too steep for the company. Then you have a company like Irvine-based VR Sports, which announced last week the release of VR Baseball '99 for PlayStation. The company's big-name endorser on the box: The Angels' Darin Erstad. ``We were attempting to form a partnership with an emerging major-league star,'' said VR Sports director of marketing Paul Sackman. That, and Erstad fit their budget. CAPTION(S): Photo PHOTO Havoc in Hotlanta: Sugar Ray Leonard vs Oscar De La Hoya |
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