03/26/20: Evil Geniuses announced plans with America’s Navy for content and a deeper partnership

Good morning! This is your weekly Esports Brief.

Evil Geniuses will support the development of the first Counter-Strike: Global Offensive competitive team for America’s Navy as well as the creation of an exclusive six-episode content series. Made up of Navy Sailors, Goats & Glory is the Navy’s first esports team. The content series will feature the Evil Geniuses’ team immersed in the world of the Navy. Along with Sailors from across the fleet, Goats & Glory and the Evil Geniuses will swap tips on teamwork, training mental dexterity and discover how their skills as gamers can easily translate to careers in the Navy. Over the next few months, Evil Geniuses and Goats & Glory will also team up at September’s TwitchCon event in San Diego. In addition to appearing at the Navy activation space, Evil Geniuses’ team members will play with fans throughout the event, adding Sailors to their squad and broadcasting special Squad Streams live from the event.

The ESL Mobile Open presented by AT&T is getting some big changes for Season 5 with ESL announcing the addition of auto battler title Auto Chess and the integration with the PUBG MOBILE Club Open. All in, registration for Asphalt 9: Legends, Clash of Clans, and PUBG MOBILE is currently open, with Auto Chess registration beginning today. “Mobile esports are providing access to the next generation of esports players and fans,” said Kevin Rosenblatt, Vice President, Product & Content, ESL. “We’re excited to be adding Auto Chess to our collection of mobile titles in addition to tying in with the PUBG MOBILE competitive ecosystem. Through these and other soon to be announced updates, we believe the ESL Mobile Open is providing even more opportunities for casual mobile gamers and creating a clearer path to professional play for amateurs.”

Updating some more date changes as a result of the coronavirus, Riot Games will now host the 2020 LCS Spring Finals entirely online, with the event still taking place April 18-19. The decision comes after Riot previously opted to shift the Spring Finals from Texas to its studios in Los Angeles.

Meanwhile, ESL announced that two ESL One competitions will completely be held online: ESL One Los Angeles 2020 – Online and ESL One Birmingham 2020 – Online. Both tournaments will be played and broadcasted online starting with ESL One Los Angeles 2020 kicking off later this week on March 28 with five regional online leagues. Each region will feature top teams playing it out in a round-robin stage followed by playoffs

After NASCAR, iRacing and FOX Sports teamed up last Sunday to deliver the first-ever eNASCAR iRacing Pro invitational Series event, FOX Sports is going all in with coverage of the remainder of the season, beginning Sunday at 1p live from virtual Texas Motor Speedway. Entitled FOX NASCAR iRACING, the races will be simulcast on the FOX broadcast network*, FS1 and the FOX Sports app. Last Sunday’s inaugural event drew 903,000 viewers on FS1, according to Nielsen Media Research to rank as the most-watched telecast on FS1 since the pandemic-induced sports shutdown began on March 12 and Sunday’s most-watched sports telecast on cable television, as well as ranks as the highest-rated esports TV program in history. Additionally, according to rankings by Twitter interactions, the eNASCAR iRacing Pro Invitational Series on FS1 was the #1 most-social TV program overall on Sunday.

La Liga’s charity FIFA 20 tournament delivered audiences, reeling in more than one million viewers across YouTube, Twitch, LaLigaSportsTV with a broadcast on Movistar+ via Deportes 1 in Spain as well as on Eleven Sports in Belgium and Portugal. The tournament was a result of a partnership between the league, sponsor Santander and FIFA series developer EA Sports.

YouTube creator Keemstar announced plans to launch a creator and community event space titled KeemPark. Created in partnership with content creation services Greenlit Content and eFuse. Competition began Tuesday with a slate of Call of Duty: Warzone tournaments and every subsequent Wednesday that will feature other personalities that include Ninja, Nickmercs and Nadeshot of 100 Thieves, as well as artists such as Lil Yachty. “We are excited to usher in Warzone Wednesday to one of the most engaged fanbases in all of gaming,” said John Benyamine, CEO of Greenlit. “We are looking forward to participating in even more with Keemstar and LFM Management in the coming weeks.”

Overwatch League is going all in to make up for lost time due to event cancellations, and has lined up a full weekend of play that will start Saturday at 4a ET with the Charge/Dragons, and eight matches on deck overall, running through midnight. Sunday sees an equitable lineup that starts with the Hunters/Dragons. See the full slate below.

While the Olympics have been pushed into 2021, the Intel World Open will continue as planned, according to GINX TV. In a statement from Intel, a spokesperson told the site that they’re “committed” to making the Intel World Open happen, noting, “As we are dealing with an unprecedented global situation, Intel remains committed to prioritizing the health and well-being of not only our employees and customers and their families, but all of those who are part of the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 and Intel World Open community.”

CS:GO major ESL Rio has been pushed from May until November, but will be keeping the event’s Major status and replacing the second Major of the year. The Champions Stage (the playoffs) of the competition will remain at the Jeunesse Arena and will be played from Nov. 19-22, boasting a $2,000,000 prize pool in total. “Our decision is an extremely tough one, but health and safety have to take absolute priority,” said Ulrich Schulze, SVP Product at ESL. “Given the very difficult circumstances for live events, we still wanted to give the Brazilian fans the CS:GO Major they deserve. We ask everyone to stay safe and we are pleased to be able to continue to deliver some quality CS:GO esports content to the community during these troubling times, while we prepare the Rio Major for November.”

Following ESL’s move, BLAST announced that it would be postponing the BLAST Premier Fall Showdown. The event was pushed back one week and will now run Nov. 25-29 in order to avoid competing with the Major in Rio.

Formula 1 announced the launch of a new F1 Esports Virtual Grand Prix series, featuring a number of current F1 drivers. The virtual races will run in place of every postponed Grand Prix, starting this past weekend. Every subsequent race weekend will see the postponed real-world Formula 1 race replaced with a Virtual Grand Prix, with the initiative currently scheduled to run until May. The series uses the official F1 2019 PC video game, developed by Codemasters, and the first virtual GP on the Sakhir track will be a 50% length race with 28 laps. During non-race weekends, Formula 1 will also be hosting online exhibition races, where fans from around the world will be given the chance to go head-to-head with F1 drivers.

The United Soccer League will now launch a 32-team Rocket League tournament, titled the USL eCup. Play will run March 31-April 24 with teams repped by soccer players, supporters, and team ambassadors.

Meanwhile, INDYCAR is teaming with iRacing to stage six virtual race events featuring a lineup of current NTT INDYCAR Series drivers starting March 28. Each race will be streamed live on indycar.com while the current 2020 NTT INDYCAR SERIES season is suspended in addition YouTube and Facebook Live as well as iRacing’s Twitch channel. Each virtual race event, which will last approximately 90 minutes to two hours, will begin at 4p each Saturday through May 2. To enhance the fan experience, INDYCAR will conduct a 15-minute, pre-race virtual autograph.

DreamHack Dallas and DreamHack Summer were both rescheduled as a result of the coronavirus. As a result of this change, DreamHack Masters will no longer be co-hosted at DreamHack Summer. DreamHack Dallas (originally slated for May 22-24) will now take place August 14-16 at Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center in Dallas. DreamHack Summer (originally scheduled for June 12-14) will now take place August 6-9 at Elmia in Jönköping, Sweden.

Collegiate StarLeague announced that the CSL Grand Finals has been postponed until further notice. The decision comes as college campuses shut down as a result of the coronavirus. “Listening to our players’ feedback regarding the current situation and the importance of their voices as representatives of the collegiate esports community has led to this decision and action,” the company said in the announcement. “In the spirit of acting responsibly, providing fair and equitable competitive environments, and with an abundance of caution for our players and fans alike, we at CSL feel it is the proper action to take at this time.”

Friday sees the NBA 2K League host the first-ever “NBA 2KL Three for All Showdown,” an online 3-on-3 tournament featuring fan-organized teams, top female 2K players and social media influencers, all competing in the NBA 2K20 MyPark game mode for the chance to play against NBA 2K League teams and a share of a $25,000 prize pool. The first stage will feature 32 fan-organized teams competing against each other in distinct XBOX and PS4 brackets. The second stage of the tournament will take place starting March 31 and will feature NBA 2K League players (teams of three will represent their NBA 2K League teams), top female 2K players, social media influencers and the top performing teams from the fan?only stage, again competing against each other in distinct XBOX and PS4 brackets.

Video game genres rise and fall as new trends or externalities run through the industry. Over the past few months, there has been a growing interest for simulated racing games. Some of the genre’s tournaments even reached over 60k peak viewers. As various games jockey for market share of the simulated racing trend, Stream Hatchet investigates month-over-month growth of hours watched across several titles.
· While most of the sampled Racing Simulator games increased in hours watched since the beginning of the year, F1 2019 had the highest growth at a rate of 1,061%.
· iRacing generated the most hours watched over the last three months out of the sampled games at 2.95 million.
· The lack of traditional televised racing due to COVID-19 is likely playing a large role in simulated racing interest, especially over the past few weeks.
For more information regarding simulated racing and other video game trends, please visit www.streamhatchet.com or contact [email protected].

TSM unveiled a new partnership with MTN DEW AMP GAME FUEL. “We’re thrilled to team up with fellow powerhouse MTN DEW AMP GAME FUEL to bring gamers together and provide our players and fans with unparalleled experiences,” said TSM Founder and CEO Andy “Reginald” Dinh. “For 10 years, TSM has been a leader in performance, competitive excellence, and innovation. This partnership furthers our mission to be the best, and will fuel us as we look forward to the next 10 years.”

G FUEL expanded its partnership with FaZe Clan to collaborate across talent, content, retail distribution, apparel, and merchandise, starting with the launch of the new G FUEL Hydration flavor “FaZeberry.” “FaZe Clan and G FUEL have one of the more storied partnerships in all of gaming,” said FaZe Clan Chief Revenue Officer, Jeff Pabst. “Product development has been a key area of focus with numerous FaZe Clan x G FUEL-themed flavors that have been introduced over the past eight years. We are excited to partner in 2020 on the launch of FaZeberry G FUEL Hydration and bring the new flavor to our community of FaZe Clan fans.”

TAG Heuer signed on as the new title sponsor of Porsche’s esports series, which will now be titled the Porsche TAG Heuer Esports Supercup and offer a prize pool of $200,000 for the upcoming season. “Porsche stands for exceptional experiences. Esports racing offers such an emotional Porsche experience to many fans of our brand and the ‘Porsche TAG Heuer Esports Supercup’ is our most important virtual racing series,” said Kjell Gruner, VP Marketing at Porsche AG. “After a very successful premiere in 2019, we are now about to start the second season with a strong partner at our side. Porsche and TAG Heuer are already a great team in Formula E. Now TAG Heuer, as a brand with heritage, is helping to further establish the most aspirational competition in esports racing.”

PLATFORMS

Super League Gaming is reporting record traffic with audiences at home, reporting traffic and engagement spikes across digital channels. Growth is led by Minehut, the company’ Minecraft community. This past weekend, Minehut had 1.3 million page views and 66k new registrations over the past 7 days while Tuesday saw the platform notch 627k page views with a new record of 10,026 simultaneous servers online.

ESL and DreamHack announced that Polsat Games acquired broadcasting rights for the ESL Pro Tour. As part of the partnership, Polsat Games will broadcast up to 2,000 hours of CS:GO competitions in 2020, featuring commentary from Polish experts and analysts. The majority of the broadcasts will be hosted directly from the studio in the Polsat Games’ Warsaw. Globally, the ongoing broadcast of the current ESL Pro League Season 11, as part of ESL Pro Tour, just reached an all-time record peak CCU (excl. China) with over 355k, for a markup of 66%, as well as an all-time ENG record peak CCU of over 190k (+44%).

INDUSTRY

Riot Games donated $1.5 million to local nonprofits and the LA mayor’s relief fund to aid in the coronavirus relief effort in California. Riot contributed $500,000 of the total, whereas company co-founders Marc Merill and Brandon Beck each donated $500,000.

GameCo is reportedly partnering with esports data provider GRID to bring esports betting products to North American casinos. GRID will subsequently offer real-time feeds of official data and streaming assets from esports competitions as well as a variety of services to help “unlock the potential of esports for casinos and sportsbooks.” GRID’s data platform supports the titles such as CS:GO, Dota 2, League of Legends, and PUBG.

The New Zealand Esports Federation was named the national governing body for esports in New Zealand. The org will take on oversight of education and guidelines regarding visas, tax statuses, and prize money distribution regulation for players.

In a move to combat the coronavirus, Gareth Bale, Ruben Loftus-Cheek, Jordan Pickford and more names will come together to play FIFA 20 for a charity livestream designed to raise funds to fight COVID-19. Backed by 38 Entertainment Group, the livestream will announce dates shortly with money raised set to be split between key charities to maximize efforts. Confirmed footballers include: Gareth Bale, Ruben Lofrus-Cheek, Mason Mount, Luke Shaw, Daniel James, Jordan Pickford, Ruben Loftus Cheek, Billy Gilmour, Dominic Calvert-Lewin, and Kieran Tierney.

ROSTER MOVES

Immortals Gaming Club named Jon Tuck as its Chief Commercial Officer. There, he will be charged for overseeing revenue streams that include sponsorship, media sales, merchandise, and live events. Tuck previously over three years at NASCAR.

On This Day
2013: BioShock Infinite is released

Trivia
Name the game pictured above. (Email [email protected] with your answer and be sure to include your name, company and city.)

Answer to Our Last Sports Trivia Question
What is the victory message in PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds? Answer: “Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner.” Kudos: Julie Reuther/Sydney; Chris Davies-Virgin/London; Brian Jacobs-ICM Partners/NY; Danny Araque/NY; Joey Olson-Lowe’s/DC; Glen Ross/Richmond; Jason Morrow-Toyota/Houston; Kaila Gale/Chicago; Daniel Hanson/Vail; Alec Eckert/Las Vegas; Tom Moore-Kalt Productions/LA; Greg Dudsic/Venice; Andy Babb-Super League Gaming/Santa Monica