Founder and CEO Azrul Ananda acknowledges that the e-sports industry has grown into a tempting new market that cannot be ignored, wanting to provide a medium for basketball aficionados who love to play online games and are not members of their school teams.

“We are now seeking a solid yet committed partner who has the ability to not only create an event but manage it in the long run. Right now, we are in discussion with several companies but still haven't reached any final terms. We hope that we will be ready to launch sometime next year,” Azrul told The Jakarta Post recently.

Azrul predicts that the potential market is huge and this will also become a window where DBL can extend its influence to youngsters so they can enjoy a smooth balance of pleasure, healthy lifestyle and academic excellence.

“Assuming there are 100 students who join a school basketball club, only around 24 people will make it into the team, so the rest are still in need of alternatives,” said the former journalist.

People with disabilities, who cannot play the sport on the court but engage in online gaming, are also the audience that the DBL wants to grab, he continued.

“In the future, it is possible that we could develop our local league as online gaming as well,” said Azrul, son of former state-owned enterprises minister Dahlan Iskan.

Currently, 42,000 students play in DBL and junior DBL leagues in 22 provinces and 30 cities, with more than 1.5 million spectators in a season. One out of four students in Indonesia is a DBL participant and one out of 10 schools in Indonesia is a DBL participant. Indonesia’s top sporting league the premier soccer league, Liga 1, sees 3.1 million spectators on average in a season.

Azrul started DBL Indonesia in 2004 with only small number of staff and resources. The company started to flex its muscle on 2008 and right now it has 300 permanent staff.

In the meantime, the number of online games players in Indonesia was 44 million in 2017.

“We are going to provide the same care and apply the same standard for our e-sports student-athletes. At the top of the list, these students are obliged to have good grades in school first before they can join in,” he said.

Azrul said DBL would provide nutritional and training packages, which include physical exercises, for its future e-sports athletes.

Dutch-based data analysis agency Newzoo recorded, as reported by katadata.co.id, that Indonesia is ranked 17th in the world in the online games market.

The top two are China and the United States with their total revenues of US$34.4 billion and $31.53 billion, respectively.

Indonesia has also booked $1 million in revenue from online games transactions. Of that figure, only around 1 percent has found its way back to local games developers.

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