Tech Tent: Can e-sports take on football

Every year it seems that professional sports - and, in particular, football, of both the American and English variety - grow richer, with broadcast rights, merchandise and sponsorship earning billions of dollars for the owners of top clubs, who promptly spend it on players. For quite a while, we have been told that e-sports, where audiences watch professional video games players in action, will soon rival football and basketball as a lucrative leisure industry. So far, those claims have looked overblown but this week the leading games firm Activision Blizzard outlined its audacious plan for an e-sports league which could match the NFL or the Premier League.