Konrad Wasiela was stunned after his first time watching the Intel Extreme Masters professional gaming competition in Poland. It had all the trappings of a serious sporting event: a packed stadium, tens of thousands of fans, and esports athletes as committed as Wasiela’s teammates had been during his days playing in the Canadian Football League.

“I felt like I was in a football stadium — and I’ve only seen that once before when I was playing pro sports,” Wasiela says. “I thought: ‘This is the real deal.’ ”

After four years in the CFL, playing cornerback for the B.C. Lions, Saskatchewan Roughriders and Montreal Alouettes, Wasiela pivoted to gaming. He worked as an adviser for a localization service, called APlus Translations, translating video games for major game studios, including EA Sports, into more than 40 languages.

After watching the Intel Extreme Masters in Poland, Wasiela wanted to go deeper.

So he called some of his closest contacts in Europe and pitched his big idea. The result was ESE Entertainment, a media and technology company focused on providing anything a game studio would need to promote, enhance and sell its games to the world. Since 2019, the company has grown from Wasiela’s core group of friends to 150 employees worldwide.

Esports is to video games what a pro-level NFL franchise is to a high school football team; some of the best players of video game titles, such as “Overwatch,” “Call of Duty,” and “Rainbow Six Siege,”…