RELATED: Comcast Gears Up for ESports

ESPN2 will jump into the eSports arena with the June 14 live telecast of the Madden NFL 16 Championship, the network said Monday.

The telecast, marking the first time ESPN has televised the eSports event, will take place from the Novo Theater in Los Angeles, said the network. The winner will take home a $50,000 prize.

ESPN’s Madden 16 Championship telecast follows TNT’s premiere last month of the ELeague. 

Turner Thursday named industry veteran Michael Bloom as its senior vice president of unscripted series and specials.

Bloom, who will officially join the company June 20, will oversee the creative development and production of unscripted content across platforms for both TNT and TBS, according to the company.

Bloom was most recently senior vice president of IMG’s Original Content group. where he was instrumental in forging the architecture for ELeague, the eSports co-venture between Turner and WME.  Prior to IMG, Bloom served as executive development consultant for AMC, where he helped established the non-fiction programming department and AMC’s first non-fiction series including The Talking Dead and Comic Book Men.  

"We have ambitions to inject some different thinking in the unscripted arena,” said Kevin Reilly, president of TNT and TBS and chief creative officer of Turner Entertainment, to whom Bloom will report. “I've known and worked with Michael for years and I'm looking forward to what comes from having his tremendous energy and relationships aimed at that target."