This week in Esports: Turtle Beach, AEG, NBC and Unikrn all have big news

It has truly been a mammoth week in esports news; with a huge amount of deals and partnerships being forged and impressive new entrants into the burgeoning industry. If you missed any of it,  we’ve got you covered with our weekly recap. 

Turtle Beach, the apparel company has signed partnerships on the console side with Splyce, and more impressively on the PC side with Danish Major champions Astralis. Immortals has announced that AEG has joined the investment group behind it — potentially opening up the potential for an OWL spot with AEG’s LA arena being used for the live matches. NBCSports, in partnership with FACEIT and Psyonix are bringing Rocket League to TV in another big non-endemic reveal. To top it all off, esports only betting operator Unikrn has signed a partnership with supplier Bet Genius and also revealed its Unikoin Gold crypto-currency. 

Turtle Beach agree two big name partnerships

Turtle Beach, one of the most renowned audio peripheral suppliers has this week revealed two big partnerships —  one in the world of PC gaming and one in console gaming.

In console gaming, they have partnered with Splyce. The partnership will see the organisation’s console teams adorn Turtle Beach audio gear from the “Elite Pro” series. 

Marty Strenczewilk, CEO of Splyce commented “Turtle Beach is an innovator in console gaming audio, and I can say with confidence that we’ve accomplished that goal for our players with this partnership. All of the players on our console teams were ecstatic when they found out they’d be using Turtle Beach’s Elite Pro gear when facing the rest of the best teams in the world.”

In the PC world, Turtle Beach has revealed it is now partnered with Astralis, one of the biggest and best teams in the Counter-Strike: Global Offensive title. 

The deal will see Astralis use Turtle Beach’s new Elite Pro-PC Edition gaming headset and other accessories when competing in Counter-Strike Global Offensive tournaments. In addition, the new partnership reveals that members of Astralis will play a key part in Turtle Beach’s future product development process — ensuring the needs of the best pro players are being met by the company’s products. 

Read the full Splyce article here.

Read the full Astralis article here.

AEG make strategic investment in Immortals

AEG, one of the world’s largest sports and live entertainment companies has announced a strategic investment in esports organisation Immortals. 

Noah Whinston, Immortals

Following the investment in Immortals, AEG joins the illustrious ownership group which includes Lionsgate, Lionsgate’s President of Interactive Ventures & Games Peter Levin, Memphis Grizzlies co-owner Steve Kaplan amongst several other well respected investors. It will see them link up with Chairman of Immortals (and MD of Crosscut Ventures) Clinton Foy, and Immortals CEO Noah Whinston. 

As part of the investment, Immortals will host their Los Angeles-based tournaments and events at AEG’s, L.A. LIVE. It’s not the first time AEG has got involved in the burgeoning esports industry. Last September, the company entered a long-term global partnership with ESL, which enables the esports company to utilise AEG’s network of 120+ clubs, theatres, arenas and stadiums for events. 

It could suggest Immortals involvement in the Overwatch League as the rumoured venue criteria is now satisfied. There surely is no other reason that Immortals would be using a venue. 

Read the full article here.

NBC Sports enter esports with $100,000 Rocket League tournament with FACEIT

NBC Sports Group announced today that it will launch a new esports tournament this summer that will utilise FACEIT’s competitive gaming platform, and numerous NBCUniversal and Comcast regional, national and international assets, to allow gamers of all skill levels to compete in a 2v2 Rocket League tournament for a $100,000 prize pool.

This 2v2 Rocket League tournament will begin on the FACEIT platform with regional online qualifiers, which will be divided into competitions for all eight NBC Sports Regional Networks, as well as additional American and European open qualifying regions. Competitors in the Regional Sport Network (“RSN”) regions will then move on to in-studio regional final competitions at select RSNs.

The tournament will culminate in a two-day Grand Finals with coverage of the Regional and Grand Finals across a variety of NBCUniversal and Comcast national and international platforms. In total, more than 40 hours of event coverage will be presented across live-streaming, video-on-demand, and linear platforms.

Read the full article here.

Unikrn partner with Betgenius and introduce UnikoinGold

Dedicated esports bookmaker Unikrn has had a busy week. The company’s Founder and CEO Rahul Sood has now announced a step up from its existing ‘Unikoin’ product, revealing it will be launching its own cryptocurrency called UnikoinGold. 

UnikoinGold will be on the Ethereum blockchain as a ‘decentralised ECR20 token’ and the site states that it ‘will be an entry to the existing Unikrn betting system, and it will also become the exclusive token used on a brand new skill- based betting platform’. That it’s part of the Ethereum blockchain is significant as it means people will be able to buy, sell and trade them on the exchanges for Ethereum. 

Sports data and technology company Genius already supply the esports market odds to Betway and Sky Bet, and henceforth Unikrn will now benefit from the same package. This means that the esports only bookmaker will soon offer live markets and enter new European territories for real money betting.

The partnership though is far more than just odds and markets. Genius Sports’ Head of Esports Moritz Maurer told Esports Insider: “We’re delighted to announce our partnership with Unikrn. They’re the most endemic of esports bookmaker in that they’ve built, and are building, an esports community of fans. They’re esports only and this is part of what attracted us to them.”

Read the full UnikoinGold article here.

Read the full Betgenius article here.