Whether you think of esports as a proper sport or not, there is now no way to completely separate the two.

The growth of esports over the past few years has been brisk. The 2017 Intel Extreme Masters Final clocked in with 46 million unique online views. For comparison, Nielsen had 30.6 million viewers for the Trump inauguration.

Viewership of esports has started to trend toward more offline. TBS carries a steady amount of ELEAGUE, while Overwatch can be found on Disney XD. On occasion, the ESPN family of channels carry some esports, including Halo, and FIFA tournaments can be found on Fox Sports. This summer, NBCSN will dedicate 40 hours of content to Rocket League.

While the shift to television is aiding growth, the online viewership and revenue continue to grow as well. A study by SuperData Research showed that the viewership on Twitch is larger than that of Netflix and HBO.

On the revenue side, Newzoo data totaled the amount of revenue in esports in 2017 as $696 million.

This is still while esports lack the mainstream appeal that traditional sports carry. The two entities appear relatively far apart.

But after this week, it is time to really consider that esports have become a legitimate player when it comes to sports entertainment.

One of the most popular esports competitions, the League of Legends Championship Series, just went through a momentous week.

First off, the World Championships continued in China. The winners will take home a big part of the $4 million prize pool. That prize pool contained $2 million of crowdfunded money and is one of the largest in esports history.

With the semifinals taking place this weekend, tickets to the event at the Shanghai Oriental Sports Center are already sold out. The arena holds 18,000.

The finals will be in the Bird’s Nest in Beijing, which seats 91,000. Tickets have not yet been made available, but it is likely they will sell out as well for the Nov. 4 final.

While all of this was going on, the North American region of League of Legends (NA LCS) entered a bold new era. Instead of the former method of relegation and promotion, the NA LCS will move to a franchise based model in the spring.

Throughout the week, the franchises were announced. Some of the big hitters remained, such as Team SoloMid, Cloud9 and Team Liquid. One notable team, Immortals, decided against joining, rather focusing on their Overwatch League team.

In more of a shock, three NBA heavy hitters won franchise rights. The Golden State Warriors, Cleveland Cavaliers and Houston Rockets will join the League landscape now.

Other organizations are jumping on board, further blurring the line between digital and physical sport. The New York Yankees last week stated an investment in the esports organization Echo Fox’s parent company Vision Esports. Echo Fox also secured a franchise this week.

All of this is occurring as the mainstream sports are beginning to join the esports community.

Starting next year, the NBA and Take-Two Interactive will combine for the NBA 2K eLeague. Seventeen NBA teams will be featured in the inaugural season. NBA commissioner Adam Silver has already made his intentions clear to have all 30 teams in the league.

Meanwhile, Electronic Arts and Madden have extended their esports competitions, with three major competitions leading up to the first Madden Ultimate League starting in February.

FIFA continues to be at the forefront, with the FIFA Interactive World Cup and Club World Cup taking off.

But when it comes to the coupling of digital sport with the real world, it is Formula 1 that is really blurring the line.

The F1 Esports Series will have its Grand Final on the day before the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, the final race of the Formula 1 season.

But in terms of real-world experience, McLaren F1’s World Fastest Gamer perfectly connects the two sides. Over the last few months, McLaren has gathered 10 of the fastest racers in the world on different platforms. They will go and race in front of a panel of judges, and the winner gets a one-year deal with the team as the simulator driver. That job is integral for the F1 team, collecting data to be used by the McLaren drivers for each Grand Prix.

At that point, a reality of playing video games for a living has just come true.