ESPL New Delhi/UNI: India’s first-ever franchise-based Esports league, the Esports Premier League (ESPL) has partnered with Hong Kong-based smartphone company Infinix Mobile as the title sponsor for its inaugural edition, which will begin from June 16.
The ESPL wants to tap into the growing landscape of esports in the country to help the competitive gaming community. This segment has received a significant boost in the last year as an increasing number of users are spending time on smartphones for gaming.
Aiming to give Esports ecosystem in India a complete makeover and rise Esports and gaming in the Indian market with the upcoming top-notch event, India Today Group, which has forayed into esports, is geared up to roll out Season 1 of the league from June 16.
The league will witness a massive total prize pool worth Rs 25 lakhs. It has teamed up with Garena to create an exclusive gaming platform for Free Fire - the most popular battle royale game currently played by gamers and gaming enthusiasts in India.
ESPL will enable players from across the country to showcase their skills on this mega national stage for the first time.
The league will be streamed on multiple platforms including OTT giant Disney+ Hotstar as well as the official YouTube and Facebook channels of India Today and Aaj Tak along with their websites.
ESPL intends to be the largest platform to discover and nurture new gaming talent across India.
'This pandemic and the resultant lockdown have contributed to propelling the esports industry into mainstream entertainment. India Today’s Gaming and Esports platform will provide a thrilling experience to its users through a wide range of games, online tournaments, and an opportunity to win exciting prizes,' said Kalli Purie, Vice Chairperson of India Today Group.
With the pandemic and lockdown still in place, ESPL will be played as a virtual tournament in its inaugural edition and comprise of more than 700 online matches with about 300 plus hours of streaming.
'The Indian online gaming industry is growing at a rate of almost 27% per annum and is estimated to reach 2.8B dollars by 2022. The current pandemic situation has further fuelled the growth of the gaming industry in India.
At Infinix, we are part of this revolution by making devices for the mid-range segment that is feature-rich and enhance the users gaming experience, to further amplify the gaming capability of a user our R&D has developed a technology called Darlink which optimizes and improves the performance of a device on several parameters,' said Anish Kapoor, CEO of Infinix Mobile.
The tournament, which will be played over a period of two and a half months, will have initial two levels to screen the best eight teams which progress into the grand finale representing eight cities across the country including Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Punjab, and Rajasthan.
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