Later this afternoon head of Esports Media at Yahoo, Travis Gafford, announced an end to the company’s eSports program. He explained the reasoning as a need to focus on their traditional sports brand and continued to thank both the accepting eSports community and his incredible colleagues.

I lack the knowledge to say how the company has contributed to the Industry during their time, but I know their interest gave a sense of credibility to eSports that it very much needed. By sponsoring tournaments and showing investors that – to them- eSports was something that was worth pouring money into, dedicating time toward, and deserving of recognition, they helped to further establish us as an industry and introduced us to a sect of society that would otherwise have ignored us and considered us trivial.

I haven’t looked at Yahoo’s accounts, and I’m sure this was considered significantly prior to and following their merger with AOL, but I hope that they’ve made the right decision and I wish the people working within that division the best of luck landing on their feet.

@WASDmeta