Another week, and another seven days of growth and announcements in the esports industry.
This week saw huge news for one organisation with Echo Fox confirming a $38m (£m) funding round which included big name celebrities such as
Elsewhere we saw Lionsgate partner with Overwatch League team Los Angeles Valiant, one of the world’s biggest football teams FC Barcelona enter esports by way of eFootball.Pro and more Spanish football involvement with La Liga confirming some interesting sounding plans for their own esports commitment.
Below is a brief overview of each of these stories. Remember to sign up to our ESI Dispatch newsletter to get these kind of stories delivered to your inbox twice a week.
Echo Fox receives $38m in funding round including major celebrities
Echo Fox‘s ownership group Vision Esports has raised $38 million (£27,200,400) after a funding round saw major celebrities invest.
The esports organisation, owned by Rick Fox, received backing Kevin Durant (along with his business partner Rich Kleiman), Odell Beckham Jr., the St. Louis Cardinals, Shamrock Holdings, Seth Bernstein Capital Management, and First Access Entertainment’s Simon Tikhman.
Read the full article here.
Lionsgate partners with Los Angeles Valiant, becomes jersey sponsor
Overwatch League franchise Los Angeles Valiant has a new jersey sponsor for Stage Two of the league in the form of Ash vs Evil Dead, due to a new partnership with Lionsgate.
The Overwatch team – owned by esports organisation Immortals – will help to promote Season 3 of the Starz original series. The brand new journeys that boast the Ash vs Evil Dead logo will first be displayed on February 24 when LA Valiant take on Shanghai Dragons.
Read the full article here.
FC Barcelona have entered esports
The iconic Catalan football club has joined the new, and forthcoming, competition organised by eFootball.Pro and Konami. This means that Barca will field a team, and will ‘compete against international first-rate rivals’.
Gerard Piqué, who is President and Founder of eFootball.Pro had this to say about the news: “As a player, I’m glad that my club has decided to enter eSports and joined this innovative project that we are preparing together with KONAMI. Barça will be able to contribute its values to the competition and I’m sure that it will be a great rival for the rest of the teams. On our part, from eFootball.Pro we will join the club in its new adventure in this digital world and we will guide it so it gets to excite its fans as it does with the rest of sports.”
Read the full article here.
La Liga confirms plans for inaugural esports competition
La Liga, the organising body behind Spain’s two top flights in football, has launched its first esports competition as part of its new ‘It is not football, it’s La Liga’ campaign.
It hasn’t yet been announced what exactly La Liga Esports will entail, stating that it has plans to “roll out several ambitious projects which aim to bring together a passion for football and the exciting world of esports.”
Read the full article here.