ReKTGlobal, the esports parent company of both Rogue and the London-based team that will compete in Activision's upcoming Call of Duty league, has just announced Rudy Gobert, the NBA's 2018 and 2019 Defensive Player of the Year, as its newest investor.

In addition to being one of the current faces of the Utah Jazz NBA franchise, Gobert is a self-described gamer. He explained that, among his teammates on both the Jazz and the French national basketball team, his passion for video games is well known. Naturally, that led to his interest in investing in the rapidly-growing esports industry.

ReKTGlobal has already begun building a celebrity-heavy group of investors and owners - something that helps prove the rigor and seriousness of esports to those unfamiliar with gaming culture at large. EDM DJ Steve Aoki is a co-owner of Rogue (and has been since before the company was acquired,) alongside members of the band Imagine Dragons who bought a stake in the team in 2018. Investors in ReKTGlobal also include figures from the Latin music world, Marco “Tainy” Masís and Lex Borrero, who respectively are a producer (Tainy having produced songs for the likes of Cardi B and J Balvin, among others) and a one-time executive at the Roc Nation agency. DJ Nicky Romero also invested in the company in June of this year.

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Plus, a few of ReKTGlobal's teams compete in or represent Europe—in addition to its future London-based Call of Duty league team, Rogue's League of Legends team competes in the LES European league, while its now-defunct Overwatch team consisted primarily of French and Swedish players, many of whom now compete in Overwatch League—making French-born Gobert a natural fit into the company's European dealings.

Most recently, just this past August, ReKTGlobal signed popular streamer and competitive Fortnite player DrLupo to a multi-year deal. The deal has given him a larger role in the organization as a public face of Rogue—as well as making him a now-business partner with top NBA player Rudy Gobert, which is pretty cool in its own right.

Source: Esports Insider

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