2K Acquires PGA Tour 2K21 Studio, Inks Deal With Tiger Woods - News

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Publisher 2K announced it has acquired PGA Tour 2K21 developer HB Studios and has signed an exclusive deal with Tiger Woods. 

PGA Tour 2K21 has shipped nearly 2 million units worldwide to date, according to 2K president David Ismailer who spoke with GamesIndustry on the acquisition. 

"We have an incredible foundation to build on, and acquiring HB gives us the opportunity to optimize our relationship with them between a publisher and a developer into our independent studio structure," Ismailer said. 

"But it also lets us invest more into their resources by building out more resources in Canada and the United States. And that lets us build more engaging features for the game as we think about the future."

Tiger Woods, the 11-time PGA Tour Player of the Year, will be an executive director on future PGA Tour games and will work as a consultant with developer HB Studios. 

"There aren't that many icons in the industry other than Tiger Woods," Ismailer said. "And the way I view building sports franchises, it takes quite a while to build into the franchise. So we thought it was the right way to partner with Tiger.

"We view his ability to help us into the next set of iterations of these games over a long-term basis. We've done similar partnerships like this with players like Michael Jordan and others in the industry, specifically in basketball, around long-term partnerships for their support in growing our franchises."

Tiger Woods was injured in a car accident last month and Ismailer hopes for a fast and full recovery. The deal with Tiger Woods was agreed upon before the accident.

"We came to our agreement and partnership in advance of that accident, but that doesn't change our relationship of him becoming our executive director for the title, helping us decide talent, events, courses... He's got a wealth of knowledge," Ismailer said.

"He's one of golf's most precious icons, and we think between acquiring HB and working with Tiger, we've got an incredible opportunity to build golf in the video game space."

2K is hoping to re-expand the 2K Sports brand as it once included many annual releases based on the NBA, NFL, MLB, NHL, and tennis. However, that has decreased to just NBA 2K and WWE 2K franchises in recent years. 

Yes, we were in other sports," Ismailer said. "I think each of those sports had their own issues as to why we got out of the space. In terms of the expansion today, we're very focused on competing in a space where we have a competitive advantage.

"It's not that we're going after all sports... There's nothing to announce today, but we continue to strategically focus on specific sports and add them to our portfolio when it makes sense. We obviously have a very incredibly talented competitor in this space, so we're always very humble in our approach when we go against that competitor. However, that doesn't mean there aren't opportunities for us to exploit in the sports genre, and that's what we're doing."

A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel dedicated to gaming Let's Plays and tutorials. You can contact the author at wdangelo@vgchartz.com or on Twitter @TrunksWD.

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