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Meet the Cavs Legion Gaming Club, Cleveland's very own esports team

Owned and operated by the Cavaliers organization, this official esports basketball team is one of 24 squads who have been competing for dominance since 2018.

CLEVELAND — I’ve lived through the entirety of the video game evolution. The first video game version of basketball that I played was for the Atari 2600 system and it looked like two stick figures fighting over possession of a square dot in between two coat racks. 

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If you haven’t been paying attention, there have been some notable upgrades since my childhood. We have no reached a point where there has no been more than one occasion where I have found myself staring up at a TV screen in a bar, trying to determine whether or not what I’m watching is an actual NBA game or a simulation of an actual NBA game. Depending on where my evening is at I might watch till the end regardless.

When I was young, playing video games was considered a vice and a waste of time. In my case, that was probably true, but for some of today’s most elite gamers, it’s not just a hobby: It’s a profession.

I recently had the opportunity to meet a professional Cleveland sports team that many might not be familiar with: The Cavs Legion Gaming Club. Owned and operated by the Cavaliers organization, this official esports basketball team is one of 24 squads who have been competing for dominance since 2018.

I visited the Cavs Legion in their impressive Cavs Legion Lair Lit by TCP in Cleveland’s Battery Park neighborhood. It’s a remarkable facility with all the bells and whistles require to help these athletes hone their skills.

I got to hang out with some of the players and even got to personally play against the best of the best. And though I did not fare well, It was an honor to be publicly humiliated by the best and a pleasure to get to spend a little time with this all-too-unheralded pro-Cleveland sports team.

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