Two stories from the burgeoning sport of all things electronic with PokerStars.fr sponsoring a Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS: GO) league, and the New York Yankees partnering with Vision ESports.
The French arm of PokerStars is moving into the esports business after agreeing to sponsor a Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS: GO) league.
PokerStars will sponsor the second season of the Esports European League shown exclusively on the French general public on Channel C8 (owned by Canal+).
The first season is currently underway with five French teams and one Danish team involved. The prize money on offer is €20,000, a pretty low-grade amount for an esports event.
Here are the teams involved in Season 1.
EnVUs Academy (France)
AAa (France)
ARES (France)
Ionic (France)
DizLown (France)
North Academy (Denmark)
The plans for the second season are pretty much the same as the first with the two finalists invited back to compete with four new sides. Qualifying begins in November.
It’s not the first time that PokerStars has shown an interest in esports. PokerStars employees Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier and Randy “nanonoko” Lew both represent the esports outfit Team Liquid.
PokerStars also recently launched their poker/esports hybrid game Power Up to their real money crowd.
New York Yankees Get in on The eSports Action.
The New York Yankees, one of the most successful sporting franchises in the world, has entered the esports space.
Earlier today, press reports surfaced that the Yankees owners had entered into an investment partnership with Vision Esports that sees the Yankees involved in the running of Vision Esports three tributaries: Echo Fox, Twin Galaxies, and Vision Entertainment.
NBA Legend, Rick Fox, paid $1m to acquire the League of Legends (LOL) side Team Gravity back in Dec 2015. Fox changed the name to Echo Fox. Things must be going well. The talk in town is that Echo Fox will be one of the teams granted a franchise in Riot Games’ North American League of Legends Championship Series, an event that comes with a $10m buy-in.
Twin Galaxies is an esports platform that specialises in a potpourri of activities such as verification and recording of video game world records, player rankings, and esports events.
Vision Entertainment produces original media content for the esports industry.
The days of a baseball team being a baseball team are long gone. In 2015, Forbes valued The New York Yankees at $3.2b. It’s believed that valuation has reached $5b thanks to business interests as diverse as Legends Stadium, MLS side New York FC, and the YES Network sports channel.
