It’s been another busy week in esports with several different partnerships emerging. RFRSH has announced its first event — a Counter-Strike: Global Offensive tournament to be held in Copenhagen. Additionally, HellRaisers has signed a deal with bitcoin-led sportsbook Sportsbet.io. Astralis, the ELEAGUE Major champion has revealed Panzerglass as its latest sponsor and Player Unknown Battlegrounds (“PUBG”) will start live streaming on Facebook Live once a week.
RFRSH announces BLAST Pro Series
RFRSH entertainment, the he BLAST Pro Series is set to be a global tournament with six teams competing for a $250,000 (£193,500) prize pool.
The first of these tournaments is set to take place at the 10,000 capacity Royal Arena in Copenhagen, over the 24th-25th November. The new series will see the company work use PGL as well as work closely with esteemed caster Anders Blume.
As is seemingly customary with any production PGL are involved with, they’ll be trying something new and exciting for those watching live in the arena. For the group stages, PGL will be utilising a set-up in groups where three games are set to be played at the same time, in the same arena. Instead of pumping sound out throughout the entire arena for that group stage “the audience can choose the sound in their own headsets throughout the group matches”, allowing a choice of games directly in the arena without having to move.
Read the full article here.
Sportsbet.io and HellRaisers join forces
HellRaisers, a CIS based esports organisation, announced this week that Sportsbet.io will be one if its main sponsors.
Sportsbet.io will be offering its customers bet boosts on esports matches featuring HellRaisers throughout the 12-month deal, as well as promoting competitions for skins.
HellRaisers is currently ranked in the world’s top 20 CS:GO teams and features players from Ukraine, Slovakia and Hungary.
Aleksey “XAOC” Kucherov, CEO at HellRaisers, said: “We have made a conscious decision to choose a betting partner that shares our vision of esports growth, and we believe that by betting with Sportsbet.io our fans will not only support HellRaisers, but also the entire esports industry that we all love.”
Read the full article here.
PanzerGlass and Astralis join up
Astralis has announced another sponsorship deal — this time with PanzerGlass. The initial deal will last for a year. The team are considered one of the best Counter-Strike teams worldwide. They won the ELEAGUE Major and head to Krakow looking to make it back to back Majors.
This deal is just the latest in an impressive line of partnerships secured this year, following agreements with Turtle Beach and Audi.
The signing is also the first fruit Astralis have reaped courtesy of Lagardère Sports, a sports marketing agency that has also worked to secure sponsorship deals for Roccat, Unicorns of Love and SK Gaming since entering esports.
According to the statement on Lagardère’s website, PanzerGlass screen protectors featuring the Astralis logo will represent a “core product” of the cooperation. A custom PanzerGlass card (a collectable which can be traded with others on gaming platform Steam) will fulfill a similar role as a virtual commodity.
Read the full article here.
PUBG goes down the Facebook route
Bluehole Inc., the publisher of PLAYERUNKNOWN BATTLEGROUNDS, has today announced that it will livestream exclusive PUBG content via Facebook Live.
This will begin today, July 10th at 7:00 – 10:00 PM (PDT) and will occur four times a month at the same time and same location. Bluehole will livestream PUBG gameplay on its own Facebook page. Each live video will showcase different elements, starting with games hosted by one of Bluehole’s community managers. The weekly livestreams will then alternate hosts between content creators from the PUBG community and Bluehole’s community managers.
Chang Han Kim, VP and Executive Producer, Bluehole Inc commented: “This new initiative with Facebook will bring our passionate fan base closer to our development team.
“Livestreaming has been very important to the growth of PLAYERUNKNOWN’S BATTLEGROUNDS. We believe that featuring PUBG livestreamers on Facebook further strengthens our commitment to the community while extending the reach of our game to a global audience.”
Read the full article here.