Welcome to Grizz Gaming

The next level begins now. This is the future: of sports; of tech; of competition. And it’s happening right here in Memphis, in the heart of Grind City.

So as we welcome you to Grizz Gaming, let’s answer, what is Grizz Gaming? At its heart, Grizz Gaming is about competition on the highest level. It’s about winning and losing (hopefully mostly winning) and always, always displaying the grit and grind for which Bluff City is known.

But to fully grasp exactly what Grizz Gaming is all about, let’s zoom out further and provide some context to make sure we’re all on the same page. Grizz Gaming is an esports team that will compete in the NBA’s new NBA 2K League, which is launching this spring.

Video games are a sport? Yes, they are, and esports (electronic sports) are a big deal around the world, with almost 400 million viewers in 2017. If you already play video games, you know about NBA 2K, one of the most popular sports video games of all-time. Last year’s iteration, NBA 2K17, sold over 9 million copies, and the game currently has about 1.6 million daily active users.

The NBA 2K League will distill those millions of players down to the 85 best players in the world and pit them against each other in teams representing 17 different NBA squads. One of those squads? Your Memphis Grizzlies! During the NBA 2K League Draft in March, Grizz Gaming will select five players who will move to Memphis and compete together as our team. We’ll play five-on-five games in a regular season format as well as in special tournaments, and these games will be broadcast so you can watch us get after it and cheer us on.

So that’s what it is. You may not play video games, or even really understand what esports are, but when one of our Grizz Gaming matches comes down to us making a buzzer-beating shot or getting a tough defensive stand, we hope you’re right there on the edge of your seat alongside us.

We got next.

Someone press start, y’all. Let’s go.