A quiet week all things considered this week when it comes to the esports industry. At long last we did hear about the full details of the NBA 2K eLeague and the seventeen teams that will take part in the inaugural competition including the likes of the Boston Celtics and, of course, the 76ers.
Elsewhere Supercell revealed a Clash Royale open league and world championship, Wavedash Games secured some serious funding to build and launch a new platform fighter, and the AFL hinted at plans to make an esports move.
Supercell announce Clash Royale open league culminating in World Championship
Supercell, the developer of hugely popular mobile game Clash Royale, has announced an open league, The Crown Championship, taking place throughout 2017. It follows a seasonal structure, with the inaugural season commencing in May. Each season leads up to a World Championship at year’s end with a $1 million prize pool.
The league will have four phases, run through a special in-game feature specifically designed for the tournament. It begins with open play, in which players will be ranked for later stages, running May 11-16.
The top players move on to one of eight tournaments of 1024 players in late May, and the winners of these move on to a group stage running throughout June. Two players will be eliminated via round robin rankings, and the other six participate in a final bracket from June 30th through July 2nd.
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NBA 2K eLeague announce 17 franchises set to participate
The NBA has announced the seventeen established teams that will participate in the upcoming NBA 2K eLeague via Twitter. The 2K eLeague was initially announced in February, when Brendan Donohue, formerly a marketing and business executive within NBA, was announced as the managing director for the esports initiative. It will reportedly work similarly to the current NBA circuit, with 2K players being drafted onto teams as full-time players.
The franchises included are as follows: Boston Celtics, Cleveland Cavaliers, Dallas Mavericks, Detroit Pistons, Golden State Warriors, Indiana Pacers, Memphis Grizzlies, Miami Heat, Milwaukee Bucks, New York Knicks, Orlando Magic, Philadelphia 76ers, Portland Trail Blazers, Sacramento Kings, Utah Jazz, Washington Wizards.
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The AFL hints at esports plans
Via an interview with FairFax Media, the Australian Football League revealed this week that it plans to get involved with esports. The organisation would like to host a tournament at its Etihad Stadium and it has urged the teams in its league to form teams. The reasoning was the usual physical sporting org reasons of ‘millennial engagement’.
Darren Birch, the AFL’s growth, digital and audiences general manager told Fairfax Media in an interview: “Esports is very strong in the millennial area, so for us it is about diverse exposure to that audience. That’s no different to AFLW where we became more relevant to a female audience.
Read the full story here.
Wavedash Games secures $6million funding to develop new FGC title
Oakland based game developer Wavedash Games has announced that it has raised $6 million (£4.6m) in Series A funding, led by March Capital Partners.
Wavedash was founded by game developers from the likes of Riot Games, EA and Blizzard and plans to create a free to play platform fighter game. There’s also community leaders from other platform fighting games such as Super Smash Bros involved. The most bizarre facet of the announcement is that Linkin Park DJ and Programmer Joe Hahn has joined in an advisory capacity to ‘offer insight into creative development, marketing, and community building’.
Matt Fairchild, Wavedash’s CEO and Co-Founder commented: “We’re following the trail blazed by Riot Games and Valve by bringing community passion together with world class developer talent.”
Read the full article here.