About a year ago, Take-Two Interactive (NASDAQ: TTWO) CEO Strauss Zelnick was skeptical of the potential of esports to be a profitable business and looked at it as nothing more than a marketing tool to increase awareness of certain games. Speaking to gamesindustry.biz, Zelnick said at the time, “[W]e have yet to see [esports] as a stand-alone profitable business. We see it more as an adjunct to consumer engagement in our titles.”