In the last year, Twitch has established itself as a force to reckon with in the streaming business. Amazon bought the video game streaming service back in August, and the company has kept expanding.
Although it is still considered very niche, the company is trying to reach beyond the gaming/sports community in order to attract a more conventional sports audience. Twitch has teamed up with Duracell and Electronic Arts host the Duracell Longest Lasting Tournament, a competition professional NFL players, and professional Madden players will compete with everyday players for 26 hours (the alleged length of a Madden battery). Players compete by trying to score the longest win streak possible against Team Madden.
If you're able to succeed against Team Duracell, then you could receive a number of prizes, including $8,000, NFL gear, batteries and possibly even tickets to Super Bowl XLIX.
If Players have no desire to compete, they can watch the competition on Twitch.
Team Duracell will include Maurice Jones-Drew, Patrick Willis and Arian Foster. The pro gamers include Maddentips, Problem_Wright, Roneffect77, IMRoseBowl and HasHugZ7.
While most people won't watch this event, this is a perfect case of how an interest in video games and sports can cross over. While sports video games have received more recognition from outlets like the New York Times and New Yorker, it's still considered very niche by sports outlets. Despite the government giving professional sporting video game players the same legal rights as professional athletes, ESPN president John Skipper stated that he didn't believe that eSports were an actual "sport".
