????就連全美橄欖球聯盟也開始關注電子競技了。圣路易斯公羊隊的進攻內鋒羅杰?薩福德就是一名熱心玩家，他還參加了2013年在阿納海姆市舉辦的MLG電競比賽。由于非常醉心于電子競技，他甚至買下了《使命的召喚：幽靈》的Rise Nation Gaming戰隊。這支戰隊也正是幾個月前剛剛參加了奧斯汀X-Games邀請賽的八支戰隊之一，此前該戰隊還參加了美國動視（Activision）和Xbox在洛杉磯舉辦的《使命的召喚》冠軍賽，這場比賽的獎金為100萬美元。

????薩福特最近與公羊隊簽訂了一份五年3170萬美元的續約合同。他表示：“直到去年，我還一點不了解電子競技，我就是非常喜歡《使命的召喚》，而且總是在網上玩這個游戲。我喜歡耀武揚威的感覺，于是我買下了這支戰隊。終于我能以第一視角看所有東西，而不是通過一塊電腦屏幕。電競對這些孩子也是好事，它說明玩網游現在也能賺錢了，并非總是在浪費時間。”

????對于大贊助商們來說，電子競技絕對不是浪費時間。英特爾公司（Intel）贊助電子競技已經有十年的歷史了。全球電競賽事英特爾極限大師賽的負責人喬治?吳表示，英特爾之所以贊助電競比賽，就是要建立一個營銷平臺，在線上和線下推廣它的游戲處理器，使其成為游戲愛好者青睞和推薦的品牌，并且推動對旗下所有游戲產品的購買意圖。

????喬治?吳表示：“到現場觀看英特爾極限大師賽的觀眾已經增長了10倍，觀眾們為了買一張門票不得不排起長隊。而在網絡上，這項賽事的觀眾已經增長了100倍，現在觀看一場比賽的視頻直播觀眾，要比以往一個賽季的觀眾都多?！保ㄘ敻恢形木W）

????譯者：樸成奎

????Even the NFL has taken notice of eSports. St. Louis Rams offensive lineman Rodger Saffold is an avid gamer who attended his first MLG competition in Anaheim in 2013. He liked eSports so much he bought Call of Duty Ghosts team Rise Nation Gaming, which was one of the teams that competed at X-Games Austin a few months after the Activision and Xbox $1 Million Call of Duty Championship in Los Angeles.

????“I didn’t even know about eSports until last year, but I just enjoyed playing Call of Duty so much, and I was always online,” said Saffold, who recently signed a five-year, $31.7 million contract extension with the Rams. “I love the bragging rights. And now here I am. I finally see everything for the first time from a first-person view instead of on a computer screen. It’s all good for these kids. It shows that video games can bring you some money now. It’s not always a waste of time.”

????ESports is definitely not a waste of time for big sponsors. Intel has been sponsoring eSports for over 10 years now. George Woo, who heads up the Intel Extreme Masters global eSports tournament, said the company entered the space to establish a marketing platform to promote its gaming processor online and offline to make it the preferred and recommended processor brand by enthusiasts and to drive purchase intent for all of its gaming products.

????“Attendance to Intel Extreme Masters events has grown 10X with us filling up sport stadiums, where we have visitors lining up to get a seat to watch the competition,” said Woo. “Online it has grown 100X, where we now get more viewers watching livestreams for a single event than we’d have tune in for an entire season in the past.”