ONE Esports, the esports venture of sports media company ONE Championship, has joined forces with Chinese game developer Moonton to unveil the Mobile Legends Professional League Invitational (MPLI).
The tournament will see 20 Southeast Asian teams compete on the Mobile Legends: Bang Bang title for a share of its $100,000 (~£76,077) prize pool.
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The MPLI will take place online across five countries in Southeast Asia and the Ministry of Tourism & Creative Economy of the Republic of Indonesia will be the official presenting partner of the event.
Carlos Alimurung, CEO of ONE Esports, spoke on the tournament launch in a release: “I’m proud of how the ONE Esports and Moonton relationship has blossomed to now include this unique competition, which, for the first time, will enable the best teams from each of the four Mobile Legends Professional Leagues to compete in an online tournament.
“I thank the Ministry of Tourism & Creative Economy of the Republic of Indonesia for supporting our mission to share and celebrate the stories of esports heroes who ignite the world with strength, hope, dreams, and inspiration. Without them, delivering this first-of-its-kind competition to the esports community would not be possible.”
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This is the second time the two parties have collaborated in 2020. ONE Esports was set to host the Mobile Legends: Bang Bang Invitational in July, however, the tournament had to be postponed due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
Lucas Mao, Moonton Esports Managing Director, also commented: “The MPL Invitational is an event that can give the opportunity for our teams from different MPL countries to play in a professional setting so as to gauge each region’s level of play against one another. Esports is developing at an extremely fast pace in Southeast Asia, and we are so grateful to have our partners, teams, players, and community for showing their support and commitment to the MPL ecosystem.
“We saw a big increase in our peak concurrent users with Indonesia hitting 2.8 million and the Philippines hitting over 700,000 in our latest MPL. We look forward to breaking another record and bringing MLBB esports into the international esports stage.”
Esports Insider says: Mobile Legends esports continues to increase in popularity in Southeast Asia. Despite the lack of backing from the likes of Tencent, the partnership between Moonton and ONE Esports helps provide the region with more professional esports events for the title.
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