Competitive gaming is a big deal over in Asia, and it’s been steadily making its way to the western world over the past few years. ESPN even added an “eSports” vertical to their site in the past few months. Now your favorite NBA game NBA 2K16 is getting in on the action to the tune of $250,000 in prizes.
Called “The Road To The Finals,” the tournament series begins on February 15, with 16 qualifying events that will be used to evaluate the final 16 people who get a shot at the prize money. The 16 qualifying events will be online-based, so there’s no regional favoritism.
The tournament uses NBA 2K16’s pro-am feature, which pits five-on-five teams made up of individual human players against each other. Participants will use their own custom players rather than the existing NBA stars.
2K Sports’ statement explains further, “Teams can participate in any of the 16 qualifying events where they will need to win at least four games in order to qualify. Those four games will be scored based on the team’s performance and then ranked on the event leaderboard. The top score of each qualifying event day will be deemed the winner and will move on to the tournament.”
A single-elimination tournament will be held on May 21, and the finals match between the top two players will be held in June. The final match is slated to line up with the NBA Finals.
We know there are at least a few of you with NBA 2K16 chops out there, so head over to the full contest rules to figure out how to register. NBA 2K16 community manager Chris Manning has already upgraded his player to a 99 rating, so you’d better get working.
