• by Aaron Baar , September 7, 2011

With the future of the NBA's next season up in the air, the players need to find something else to do. Apparently, Utah Jazz forward Gordon Hayward is going to try his hand at another competitive league, the IGN Pro League of professional video gaming.

"[Professional video gaming] is really a niche hobby," David Ting, general manager of esports and vice president of R&D at IGN, tells Marketing Daily. "One of the challenges I'm trying to [overcome] is to reach the mainstream."

Signing a professional athlete like Hayward will help the nascent league (which started in April 2011) overcome the image of "a guy with glasses holed up in his room all day," Ting says.

"To have esport reach a major audience [we need] to blend the real sports and virtual sports world together," Ting says. "This is the bridge between the two, having an athlete dispel the myth that esport is something that only geeks play."

To promote the partnership, Hayward has already recorded a video that spoofs LeBron James' much-hyped (and much-ridiculed) "Decision" television special (where James announced he would play for the Miami Heat).

An upcoming video will take a tongue-in-cheek look at Hayward's training for the tournament. (Hayward is being coached by some of the world's top StarCraft players to give him a "legitimate chance" of winning the tournament, Ting says.)

"Basically, it's a fun piece on StarCraft and mirrors his play on StarCraft with his play in basketball," Ting says. "It brings a lot more exposure to the sport [of video game tournaments]."

Hayward and IGN will also use social media such as their respective Twitter feeds to promote the tournament, Ting says. Hayward has used his Twitter feed to link to videos of himself playing StarCraft even before the partnership was announced.

The ongoing NBA lockout proved key to nabbing Hayward for the partnership, Ting says. His generally idle schedule increased his availability to help promote the tournament, which would usually fall in the middle of pre-season training for NBA players. And if the lockout should continue deep into the season, Ting says it's likely the agreement -- which is in place only through the end of the year -- will be extended.