Rob Hanes is all in on sports, specifically esports.

He’s the founder of TheGameHaus.com—a website that covers the biggest news in esports and sports, and they’re quite good at what they do because their new on the block website brings in millions of views per year.

Fortunately, last week Rob and I talked and I got him to do an interview for you guys (I’m always trying to look out for my readers). There’s a bunch of quality content in here if you’re thinking about creating a website or entrepreneurial project, finding your passion, or working with a group of friends. And if esports is your thing, Rob has opinionated takes on the present and future of this rapidly growing industry.

How did you get started with this?

I started TheGameHaus.com almost on accident. My friend and I had wanted to keep talking sports as we had done on our Miami radio show. We then decided we wanted to keep writing. A couple of people we worked with at The Miami Student decided they wanted to join us and then it kind of just kept going from there.

Knowing The Game Haus is only a few years old, how does it feel to be bringing in millions of page views a year?

I remember when getting a 100 views was amazing. I would sit and have Google Analytics on one screen while working on other things for hours. Now we are depressed when we get a few thousand in a day. It is that hunger that keeps us from being complacent. To answer your question more directly, it is an amazing feeling but, after a few minutes of enjoying it we push forward thinking of new ways to continue growing.

For our readers who are unaware, what is esports by definition?

Esports are electronic sports. Essentially professional competition in high skill video games. This means you must have incredible skills through reactions, practice time, and a deep understanding of the game to be successful. Unlike most video games these ones have a higher skill cap in order to be amazing at them.

In your eyes, what’s the potential of esports going forward? Could it ever rival the popularity of sports like the NFL or NBA?

I believe esports have the potential to rival smaller traditional sports very quickly and some may have already passed viewership numbers for a few of them. For the giants like NFL, MLB, NFL, NHL, and EPL it is going to take a long time to get near those numbers. Those sports have hundreds of years of success and fanbases behind them.

Esports will get there if they can make it through the first five years of franchising. Their fans will grow with more and more children playing video games. Also esports are tapping into that market of people who never liked or played traditional sports which is way bigger than people may know.

Why do you think sports behemoths like ESPN and ABC have been slower to cover esports?

I think they are bringing a wait and see approach. Longevity has always been the biggest issue in competitive video games. Most games (competitively) only last a couple of years because they get outdated or just boring. With games like League of Legends, Overwatch, and CS:GO things are constantly being updated and changing.

With new franchising in League and Overwatch I believe that more people are realizing their ability to adapt and change to solve the longevity issue. These same people are now investing huge amounts of money because they believe in it. This makes me believe that ESPN will start investing more time and effort into esports very soon.

What do you make of NBA teams hopping on board the esports train?

Right now it seems as though the NBA is all-in on esports. The last two years are evident of that. Multiple teams have bought into or own esports organizations. There are also a number of NBA players, managers, coaches, and owners who are involved in the NBA still or were involved that have invested into esports (ie. Rick Fox who owns and started Echo Fox).

Hell they have even started the NBA 2K League which I expect to be a big success with direct partnership with Adam Silver, the NBA, and the 17 NBA teams that are in its first season.

If everything goes right going forward, what are your ambitions for The Game Haus?

I expect us to be in the conversation for being a top sports and esports combo site in the next few years. We want to show that are one stop shop for information and opinions on both. With our viewerbase and fanbase growing we hope to challenge the top companies and continue to push our way into this conversation as we get more funding.

Where’s the best place TYS readers can go to learn more about your esports and sports content?

You can go to our website TheGameHaus.com, check us out on Twitter @TGHSports and @TGHEsports, or on Facebook.

Thanks Rob, go kill it this year!