20 in their 20s: 2020

THE HEAD OF LEAGUE OPERATIONS for NBA 2K League—a joint venture between the NBA and Take-Two Interactive—is uniquely suited to lead in the $1.1 billion e-sports industry. He described his journey, however, as a “weird, winding route.”

While growing up in Fremont, Calif., Tsay absorbed video games with a scholarly fervor, reading online reports to learn how to master each new release. He also loved sports and developed a fantasy-football habit. He studied finance and economics at NYU’s Stern School of Business before spending three years at Evercore in mergers and acquisitions.

While he was moving up in the finance world, his love of sports and gaming presented him with an intriguing opportunity: a position with the NBA Global Strategy and Innovation Group, a division of the league “rooted in valuation and analytics,” he said.

When the NBA considered entering the world of e-sports, Tsay raised his hand to lead. He assembled a league that now has 23 teams with six players each. They earn up to $37,500 each per six-month contract and compete for $1.4 million in prizes, playing in front of millions of fans on the online channels Twitch and YouTube Gaming.

The 2020 NBA 2K League season—briefly interrupted during the coronavirus pandemic, which also disrupted the opening of a glitzy new Manhattan gaming studio—even featured games on ESPN2.

In other words, while live professional sports ground to a halt in the spring, NBA 2K League continued its surge. “Our viewership this season,” Tsay said, “is the highest it’s ever been.”

Correction, July 14, 2020: An earlier version of this story incorrectly identified Daniel Tsay as the head of league operations for the National Basketball League, he is the head of league operations at NBA 2K League. Tsay's prior job was with the NBA Global Strategy and Innovation Group, not with the NBA Strategy Group.