Another week, another great piece of news for Psyonix and Rocket League. It has been announced that Rocket league will form a part of this summer’s X Games, and in turn, will be broadcast on ESPN3.
This follows on from the news of NBC’s plans for the title which will see a $100,000 (£76,979) tournament (in partnership with FACEIT) aired on its network. You can read the full story on this here.
This X Games partnership is also in connection with FACEIT and features a similar prize pool though it falls a little short at $75,000 (£57,734). The Rocket League part of the X Games will be on ESPN3 over July 14-16. This isn’t X Games’ first foray into esports; they worked with MLG for some Call of Duty and CS:GO in the past, but this fast paced, highly skilled rocket car based title definitely seems a better fit.
The Psyonix Esports Manager, Josh Watson said of the news:“The X Games and ESPN have done a great job of bringing attention to nontraditional sports over the years. Adding esports and Rocket League to that lineup is something we at Psyonix are very excited about.”
The X Games, which is split into the summer and winter editions, have been running since 1995 with participants competing for gold, silver and bronze medals in addition to money. Extreme sports including motox, skateboarding, snowboarding, wakeboarding more typically feature.
Now Rocket league will compete for attention amongst these. It has been a great few months for the title with recent announcements in addition to the NBC tournament including a partnership with WWE, the game coming to Nintendo’s Switch and RLCS Season 3 securing Brisk and Old Spice as sponsors. Other smaller tournaments such as the League of Rockets’ Rocket League World Cup (which you can read about here) and the Pro Rivalry League (read about this here) are also garnering considerable attention which is vital for the grassroots growth of the title.
Esports Insider says: We’re big believers in Rocket League and this is yet more fantastic news for the game. It’s one which makes so much sense for bringing esports into ‘the mainstream’ and it’s especially in keeping with the X Games. Good work by FACEIT on delivering both the NBC deal and this one, which’ll see it on ESPN3 this summer.
