Tag: eSports

Overwatch League Coming to ESPN, Disney and ABC

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On Wednesday, Blizzard Entertainment announced that it had struck a multi-year broadcast with ESPN, Dinsey and ABC family networks. The broadcast deal includes the Overwatch League playoffs which kicked off on the night of the announced, the Season 1 grand finals that will be played at the Barclays Center in New York later this month as well as the next year’s Overwatch League Season 2.

The coverage began on Wednesday with the playoffs on ESPN3 and Disney XD. This will be followed by 10 hours of the Grand Finals coverage which will also include a July 29 recap show on ABC.

“We are turning the corner here in terms of our interest and engagement in the Esports category,” said ESPN’s Vice President of Digital Media Programming, John Lasker. “We’ve had an interest and have been watching pretty closely how the first year of the Overwatch League has been progressing, and we’re really excited to be a part of this. Clearly, by the way, we’re going to be covering it starting with the playoffs and the finals this year certainly speaks volumes to our excitement and our enthusiasm overall for Esports moving forward.”

Even though the financial terms of the partnership are yet to be revealed, it is quite obvious that this is a huge step forward for the Overwatch League and the Esports industry as a whole. Also, existing distribution agreements such as Twitch broadcasts will remain and this combined with what the Disney and ESPN networks have to offer at both the linear and digital level, Esports are headed nowhere but up.

Is This It?

The Esports industry has been around for a very long time but is undeniable that the era of live streaming is one of its key propellants. Case in point, Twitch has grown and evolved to become the go-to streaming service for competitive video games such as Dota 2, League of Legends and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. Now, other players like Facebook are carving out their own offerings with regards to the Esports streaming.

Online streaming has done a great job for Esports and it will probably remain to be a leader in that regard but the very idea of an Esports tournament championship airing live in primetime on ESPN is very exciting, to say the least. The partnership is, by all means, a well-structured strategy to bring Overwatch to a much larger audience. This brings about a crossover of sorts but the defining factor is that each distribution point is representative of different demographics with a common interest – watching the highest levels of the Overwatch League gameplay.

“It’s a cross-section that’s a hardcore sports fan, especially on ESPN channels,” Pete Vlastelica, president, and CEO of Activision Blizzard Esports leagues said. “They love watching competition, they love watching the best in the world compete at a great game. Maybe they have played video games. Maybe they know of Overwatch. Maybe they even play Overwatch or play it a lot. But they’re fundamentally looking to be entertained by the highest possible level of competition around a great game. And that’s what we’ve got.”

This could have just the right amount of momentum to propel Esports towards mainstream media and mass global adoption.

McLaren Signs New Partnerships for New Esports Series

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McLaren has had its sights set on the Esports industry for quite some time now. Last year, the car manufacturer hosted the World’s Fastest Gamer, an Esports racing competition which was won by Ruby van Buren. Following the success of that particular event, McLaren has recently revealed its plans for the Esports industry and the company indeed intends to seal its place in the world of Esports with the launch of a new Esports series called ‘Shadow Project’.

The ‘Shadow Project’ Esports series is an extension of 2017’s World’s Fastest Gamer (WFG) tournament. However, unlike the WFG that was purely dependent and focused on the traditional driving simulator titles, Shadow Project will branch out and include more casual racing titles. These will even include smartphone titles like Real Racing 3 which will be played alongside established competitive gaming titles like rFactor 2, iRacing and Forza Motorsport.

The winner of this Esports series will earn a spot on the company’s newly formed Esports racing team which will further create an opportunity for them to join McLaren’s Formula 1 team as a simulation driver.

“Last year’s competition proved that the skills learned as a racing gamer are transferable to the real world. This is unique to the racing genre. We believe that Esports and real-world racing have much to learn and give to each other and last year’s competition was just the start,” Ben Payne, Mclaren Director of Esports said. “McLaren Shadow Project will be the most open and inclusive racing Esports competition on the planet. We are looking for the most talented virtual racers from all countries and backgrounds. To make this possible we have partnered with the biggest racing game brands in the world – Real Racing 3 on mobile, Forza Motorsport on Xbox, PC racing sims iRacing and rFactor 2”

The Partnerships

While Shadow Project is entirely owned by McLaren but the company has welcomed various partners including Dell’s Alienware, VR brand HTC Vive, Logitech G, Sparco Gaming, Electronic Arts (EA) and Microsoft. HTC Vive’s involvement is perhaps one of the most interesting aspects of this development as it creates the potential for VR-enabled racing titles to be part of the line-up of the racing games the players will have to triumph at in order to claim the position of champion.

 

“Season one proved that Esports are a new talent frontier for motorsport and after pioneering the program in 2017, McLaren plans to develop the concept to generate greater global reach and engagement in season two. A strong, diverse Esports program has a direct benefit to McLaren’s innovative ambitions, bringing in new audiences, partners, and talent to motorsport,” says McLaren CEO Zak Brown. “By ramping up over multiple platforms across the online world, it will establish McLaren as an important brand in the motorsport Esports community.”

International Olympics Committee to Host an Esports Forum

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Esports is getting closer and closer to going mainstream thanks to recent efforts and developments that are being driven by a number of interested and curious parties. One of the most notable developments so far are efforts by the Global Association of International Sports Federations (GAISF) and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) both of who have joined forces and recently announced that they will be hosting an Esports forum on July 21.

The forum whose key purposes is to act as a gauge of whether or not Esports can be part of Olympics will involve professional Esports players, Esports teams, games publishers, sponsors and event organizers as well as members of the International Sports Federations and  National Olympic Committees. The forum’s primary objective will be to “explore synergies, build joint understanding, and set a platform for future engagement between Esports and gaming industries and the Olympic Movement.”

“Along with the IOC, the GAISF looks forward to welcoming the Esports and gaming community to Lausanne. We understand that sport never stands still and the phenomenal growth of Esports and gaming is part of its continuing evolution. The Esports Forum provides an important and extremely valuable opportunity for us to gain a deeper understanding of Esports, their impact and likely future development, so that we can jointly consider the ways in which we may collaborate to the mutual benefit of all of sport in the years ahead,” said Patrick Baumann, the president of GAISF.

From what we could gather the terms used in the details of the forum’s objectives, the IOC and GIASF are not only trying to promote inclusivity but also trying to find ways of making sure that Esports will make some money for the stakeholders. On offer during the July 21 forum will be a series of talks and panels with regards to how the Olympics and Esports can work together.

In addition to this, the forum will include discussions on Twitch’s success and mode, the push for gender equality and inclusivity, governance structures as far as Esports is concerned and the lives of the professional Esports players.

Esports has continued to grow at an insanely fast pace and is now even considered to be the next biggest frontier in influencer marketing. While it is undeniable that the Esports environment is brimming with potential, advertisers will certainly have to reshape their sponsorship strategies so as to match the unique nature and dynamism of the Esports space.

Even if the Esports forum is successful, Esports is not going to be part of the 2020 Olympics but in 2024 we might finally get to see the first Esports Olympics. This is somewhat a blessing in disguise as it creates room for the committee to lay out suitable guidelines for Esports at the Olympics while at the same time getting acquainted with the nature of the Esports space through existing competitions such as the Overwatch League.

Immortals Acquires Brazilian Esports Brand and New Sponsors

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Following several months of rumors and speculation, North American organization Immortals has finally revealed that it has acquired a popular Brazilian Esports brand known as MIBR (an acronym for Made in Brazil) which had been previously defunct for a little over six years. MIBR’s mysterious return on June 7 hinted at the June 23 acquisition announcement. Immortals further announced that they have hired the team roster for the Brazilian SK Gaming Counter-Strike: Global Offensive team.

Among the players that will be competing under the MIBR brand are a number of legendary CS:GO players and champions including Ricardo “boltz” Prass, Marcelo “coldzera” David, Gabriel “FalleN” Toledo, Fernando “fer” Alvarenga, Jacky “Stewie2K” Yip, and their coach, Ricardo “dead” Sinigaglia.

As previously announced, the general manager is Tomi “lurppis” Kovanen and he will oversee the activities of the team as they relocate to the Los Angeles-based Immortal campus to train and practice ahead of their first competitive appearance on July 3 to July 8 in the ESL One Cologne event at the Lanxess Arena in Germany.

“Brazil is incredibly passionate about Esports, and this acquisition allows us to foster further Esports growth in what we believe is still a relatively untapped market in Brazil and throughout South America,” said Noah Whinston, the chief executive of Immortals and now MIBR. “The MIBR brand creates a direct link to Brazil’s national pride and sports and entertainment culture. We are eager to invest in the Brazilian Esports scene and to create a platform for the region’s amazing professional Esports talent to continue to excel and dominate.”

Immortals owns a number of teams that participate in some of the most popular Esports events like the Overwatch League and Rainbow Six: Siege. Still, the acquisition of MIBR is expected to take the company to even greater heights – MIBR is, by far, the most popular and the most competitively successful team to play Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO). Their return is, therefore, certainly going to be a game changer.

Partnering with Tinder and Betway

As part of the new developments following the acquisition, the MIBR Esports brand will be working with Tinder to bring together CS:GO fans from all around the world together through several digital and live campaigns and activations that will be exclusively for Tinder’s premium subscription customers.

“We know that gaming is a passion among many of our users all over the world, and we are excited to be the first dating app to enter the Esports space with Immortals as our partner,” said Levi Nitzberg, Director of Global Business Development for Tinder. “Tinder’s global presence and highly engaged user base provides us with a unique platform which, just like Esports, brings millions of people together to connect over shared interests.”

Also in the mix as one of MIBR’s partners is Betway, an online sports betting operator, which also happens to be a founding sponsor of Immortals. The online betting service provider will receive among many other things prominent placement in all the MIBR jerseys.

“Betway is delighted to support the revival of MIBR and we couldn’t be more excited to be working with them in bringing CS:GO fans closer to the team through exclusive content,” said Anthony Werkman, the Betway chief executive officer.

Disney and Nintendo Partner for Esports Competition

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In the wake of the rapid growth and immense popularity of Esports, otherwise known as competitive video gaming, the House of Mouse has launched the Nintendo Family Showdown, a new US competitive gaming contest where select families will go against each other in head to head battles in a series of Nintendo game challenges that will be broadcast across Disney’s linear and digital platforms.

To apply for the exciting new gaming event, the parents and legal caretakers of eligible kids aged between six and 18 can submit one-minute (or less) video explaining why they are the biggest fans of Nintendo. This application period began on June 18 and when it finally comes to an end, four families will ultimately be selected to compete in the Nintendo Switch Family Showdown that will be aired on Disney XD and the Disney Channel – the competition will also be streamed on the DisneyNow app later this summer.

Some of the challenges that will be featured in the competition will include searching for collectibles in the popular Super Mario Odyssey game, dance battles in Just Dance 2018, as well as head to head matchups in Mario Tennis Aces. The four lucky families that will be selected will on August 3 head to Los Angeles to meet some of the Disney Channel stars and compete in the showdown for a shot at winning the prizes that will be on offer.

Betting on Esports

This particular contest will serve as a sort of propellant of Disney’s gradual but nicely executed venture into the Esports space – it comes right in the heels of the launch of D|XP, Disney XD’s new gaming-themed programming block last summer (June 17, 2017).

The Nintendo Switch Family Showdown aside, Disney XD had already been airing original Esports content provided by Electronic Sports League (ESL). D|XP airs a number of ESL’s shows including the ESL Brawlers and ESL Speedrunners as well as a number of series produced by VICE’s Waypoint, ESPN, Disney Digital Network, Warner Bros. Television, IGN, Attack Media, Group’s Blue Ribbon Content, Banger Films and Disney Digital Network.

Nickelodeon Not Far Behind

Nickelodeon, which is considered to be Disney’s most formidable rival, has also been busy ratcheting up its growing Esports programming lineup. The most recent for the company has been its participation in the $15 million seed round of the Minecraft-centered Super Gaming League – the company added the Super League Gaming Minecraft City Champs, an Esports series that features Minecraft teams in a multi-week national tournament.

 “Nickelodeon is interested in Esports because gaming is an important passion point for kids today, and forging this partnership with Super League puts us at the forefront of where kids will be playing next,” Nickelodeon’s executive vice president Matthew Evans said in an interview with Variety last year.

Esports Shine at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3)

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The Esports craze has been quite a big deal in the past couple of years and if anything is to go by, this year’s Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) is proof that the rapidly growing and evolving activity is here to stay. Launched in 1995, E3 is known for being a great generator of media impressions something that is currently at the center of Esports’ development hence the Esports companies are naturally drawn to the event. Besides, E3 is all about video gaming, and so is Esports which makes them, essentially, separate parts of a single but humongous entity.

In 2017, a record 68,000 people attended E3 – this included a 15,000 video game fans who took advantage of the opportunity that came with the debut of a more open system that allowed consumers to buy tickets to the sprawling industry-only trade show. This year saw even more consumer attendance and in an effort to connect with and cater to all the different facets of the audience, E3 partnered with Big Block Capital Group as well as other big brands like Volkswagen Jetta to launch Subnation.

According to Owner Big Block, one of the mentioned E3 partners, Subnation is part of a substantive push by Big Block and E3 to connect brands directly to the consumer fan base that built the gamer/Esports worlds.

“Subnation is an omnichannel media platform bringing together gaming and esports with lifestyle brands,” Big Block Capital chief executive officer, Seven Volpone said in an interview with tvrev.com. “Subnation’s mission is to elevate this global trend, celebrating the creators, innovators, and consumers who are defining today’s gaming culture while providing brands a new forum to connect with these important and influential audiences.”

Subnation will offer a series of brand experiences, live performances as well as immersive entertainment celebrating gaming and the thriving Esports culture during the expo. There will also be a nearby after party that has been dubbed Subnation Live and it will feature a performance DeadMau5.

Volpone went further to clarify that the idea behind Subantion is to better engage and connect different brands with the expressions of culture and lifestyle that are now characteristic of both the video gaming and Esports sectors. Capitalizing on this particular areas is a vital move that will eventually bring them in on the big bucks – according to PwC, these particular sectors generated a whopping £23.4 billion in the United States in 2017.

“Esports is a really exciting avenue for Big Block. We’ve been actively involved in eSports for more than 15 years. We tend not to get involved in things just because they are the trend. We really are out there mining for the best things, before they become the best thing,” Volpone added.

High School Esports Startup Receives Massive Investment

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One of the things that makes the flourishing world of Esports the marvel it is, is the colossal amount of enthusiasm the stakeholders have despite the deficiency of necessary infrastructure to support this enthusiasm. In essence, Esports is growing quite fast and thus the normal processes involved in the formation of regulatory bodies as well as other structures are bound to be outpaced.

Some of the people who have been affected most by this situation are high school students and their teachers who hope to participate in various Esports activities. Unlike many other similar activities, such as traditional sports where there are bodies to guide their actions, they have been forced to self-organize due to the lack of official bodies to guide them. However, this is all about to take a turn for the better.

PlayVS, a startup that specializes in building infrastructure to support high school Esports, has recently received a massive round of funding from a star-studded high profile investors including an assortment of venture capital groups, the San Francisco 49ers, hip-hop artist Nas, New York Jets’ Kelvin Beachum, Los Angeles Chargers’ Russel Okung, Twitch co-founder Kevin Lin and NBA all-star Baron Davis.

According to a report by ESPN, the valuation of the company is now somewhere around $50 million. This gives PlayVS a better shot at achieving their goal of developing software to formalize high school Esports competitions. The platform serves as an all-in-one online portal for students and the administration in addition to being an access portal to a select number of some of the most popular Esports titles. The platform also allows for setting and scheduling of matches, tracking and collection of player stats, as well the auto-reporting of wins and losses to prevent cheating.

Working with the NFHS

As it stands, PlayVS is the only private company that is has been officially sanctioned by the National Federation of State High Schools (NFHS) which is a non-profit organization that publishes the rules for most high school sports and performing arts activities across the United States. The NFHS will be rolling out Esports exclusively on the PlayVS Web app and this extends the company’s reach to 19,500 high schools.

“Esports sort of has this task—this mountain task—to become multigenerational. If a sport has a strong and a stable high school system, then that sport typically not only has staying power but it also lasts for multiple generations at the pro level,” says Delane Parnell, the PlayVS founder and CEO. “With our funding, we can take all the steps necessary to ensure that our inaugural season is a massive success while being affordable for schools, parents, and students across the country.”

In October this year, PlayVS in, collaboration with the NFHS, will launch its inaugural season, a venture that will bring organized Esports to over 18 states and about 5 million students from 5,000 different high schools.

Esports Betting Already Enticing Criminal Fixers

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Esports just like any other sports is unanimous with betting and as always, where there is gambling money, vices are not far behind. Putting into consideration the approximately 380 million people who will watch Esports games and tournaments this year, it is very likely that Esports fixers are already looking devising ways to get the best out of what is now the fastest growing sports in the world.

According to iNews, Esports bets will inevitably go over the $45 billion mark this year, a sum that is bound to attract the attention of fixers. Already, a number of Esports players and fixers have already, been banned and, in some cases, even imprisoned for cases of match-fixing. Similarly, last year, the Esports Integrity Coalition is reported to have received 39 suspicious betting reports with at least 13 of them being genuine fixes.

Apparently, no game is harder to detect fixing in than Esports since it is a product of geography, technology as well as its relative newness. About 15 percent of traditional sports betting in the world is fully legal and this makes it rather easy for anti-fraud and anti-fixing bodies to trace and follow betting patterns in order to identify game fixing. On the other hand, only 4 percent of Esports betting in the world is fully legal.

According to Ian Smith, the head of the Esports Integrity Coalition, the low numbers are partially due to the fact that Esports is most popular in East Asian countries like South Korea and China, where, as it turns out, traditional sports betting is illegal. Even in the United States where Esports has been going nowhere but up, 99 percent of Esports betting is illegal, even though with the recent Supreme Court ruling that revoked a federal ban on sports betting. Still, all these factors make match-fixing in Esports very hard to detect and even when detected, just as impossible to track.

Is Regulation the Answer?

New Esports games are constantly being invented and popularizes and this makes it harder to ascertain what should and what should not be regulated. This is unlike the cases with traditional sports where there is an abundance of history and data that can be used to inform anti-fixing bodies about criminal activities of this kind.

“If you get an alert in say cricket you can be reasonably certain – 80 or 90 percent – that there is something wrong,” explained Ian Smith. “In eSports, it’s kind of the opposite – because it’s all a little bit chaotic and new and changeable, about 90 percent of alerts don’t mean anything and only 10 percent do.”

The main takeaway here is that the institutional weakness of Esports makes it particularly susceptible to match-fixing simply because we still do not have a universally accepted governing body for the activity. The formation of such a body is perhaps the only way to keep the rapidly growing Esports ecosystem from being a serious criminal enterprise.

Russian’s Minister of Sports Acknowledges Growth of Esports

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For the first time since it was launched in 1997, the St. Petersburgh International Economic Forum, an annual business event, included a dedicated Esports panel session. The session gathered a number of representatives of the state, sports, business and infrastructure organizations among other stakeholders in the development of Russian Esports.

Titled ‘Cybersport: Global Trends in Sports and Business’, the session involved discussions from a number of big industry names including:

  • Emin Antonyan, Secretary General, Chairman of the Executive Board, Russian Esports Federation
  • Ilya Galaev, President, VFSO Trudovye Rezervy
  • Roman Dvoryankin, General Manager, Virtus.pro
  • Nail Izmailov, Vice President, FC Spartak Moscow
  • Aleksandr Prokopyev, Deputy of the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation, Member of the Committee on Physical Culture, Sport, Tourism, and Youth Affairs
  • Neil Sturrock, President of Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Caucasus and Central Asia, PepsiCo
  • Anton Cherepennikov, Director, Member of the Board of Directors, ESforce Holding

The moderator, in this case, was Match TV general producer Tinatin Kendalaki. Also present was the Minister of Sport of the Russian Federation, Pavel Kolobkov though he spoke at a separate session. During the said session, the minister pointed out that he believes that Esports is a legitimate sports discipline, especially because like traditional sports, it involves rules, training methodology and tournament systems. He, however, made it clear that he was of the opinion that Esports will not be replacing sports but instead flourish alongside them.

According to the Esports observer, the government of Russia has expressed a lot of keenness to work with the Esports industry to regulate Esports development in Russian. Pavel Kolobkov acknowledged that the Russian Esports sphere is developing quickly and thus the government needs to work on implementing some legal boundaries to regulate it.

“We had a long discussion, and I believe that we made the right choice because it does not matter whether the government or somebody else recognizes Esports as a sport,” Kolobkov said. “It was recognized by the society. By people who are making it. Our task is to regulate it and put in some legal boundaries, allow it to develop under our control, along with the government, along with us. That is why I am sure that at this moment one can say that Esports is quite an established sphere.”

Russia was the first country to officially recognize Esports way back in 2001 – in fact, Esports was included in the list of sports that were officially recognized and existed in the country. This was, however, followed by a period of complication that saw the activity scraped from the list twice after the restructuring of the Ministry of Sports. Everything eventually went back to normal towards the end of 2017 with Esports players now being able to earn official sporting grades just like other players of traditional sports.

MSI Final Becomes the Most Watched Esports Match in History

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Esports is almost at its prime after having gone through a decade of steady of growth to become the massive global phenomenon it currently is. This cuts across a variety of different aspects of gaming with the most notable being the impact that Esports is having on viewing entertainment both on television and streaming services. In fact, a number of records are being broken to that effect.

China and South Korea are the most recent record breakers after the MSI Final for League of Legends that pitted China’s Royal Never Give Up and South Korea’s Kingzone DragonX against each other drew in a staggering 127,551,726 viewers. This a significantly huge increase from the previous record’s 106 million figure that was set in 2017’s finals of the same tournament and also happened to feature China’s Royal Never Give Up Esports team. According to eSports Charts, a company that specializes in the analysis of data stemming from Esports broadcasts, these figures represent a great leap forward for Esports – for instance, it is now almost at par with the Super Bowl’s viewership that clocked 111 million in 2015.

The vast majority of the viewers were found to be from China, which should not come as much of a surprise since League of Legends is very popular in the country – the game boasts of over two billion watch hours in China. However, both China and South Korea have always been hardcore Esports action dens and thus the audiences in these regions have had time to mature and grow immensely which makes the disparities minimal

The viewership is certainly proof that Riot Games made the right choice when it decided to hold the tournament during times that favored the Eastern audience. This move was largely criticized and opposed by the North American and European communities but since it paid off quite decently, the company has very little to worry about.

Game Highlights

The MSI finals for League of Legends has been touted as a battle for regional pride owing to the fact that it was majorly about South Korea’s dominance in the game since 2016 and China’s unwavering quest for redemption after having failed to make it to the finals in previous tournaments – the last time China nabbed an MSI finals victory was in 2015.

China’s Royal Never Give Up managed to achieve a 3-1 victory in the MSI finals series against now former champions Kingzone DragonX. The team also broke the record for being the first non-South Korean team to beat a South Korean team in a League of Legends tournament of this magnitude in the past three years: 1,106 days to be more precise.

Also, we cannot speak of Royal Never Give Up’s victory without giving Jian “Uzi” Zi-Hao, who is now undoubtedly the world’s greatest League of Legends player. Uzi beat all odds and went on to win his second trophy after six long years which makes this tournament another career-defining moment for the Chinese League of Legends Superstar.

“I’ve been trying to win this title for six years now,” Uzi said on stage following the victory. “I can’t imagine I’m standing here with this trophy. I’m super excited for this moment.”