KRAFTON India, the developer of Battlegrounds Mobile India, has announced the return of the Battlegrounds Mobile India Pro Series (BMPS) for 2023.
The tournament, set to begin today (November 22nd) until December 17th, features 96 teams and a prize pool of INR 10m (~£95,800).
The first phase of the BMPS 2023 features an online Round Robin format for 12 participating groups, each consisting of eight teams. The top 16 emerging teams qualify for the Grand Finals, which will be held in an offline setting.
The series’ previous edition, BMPS Season 1, took place over one year ago, garnering almost 305,000 peak viewers and 6.59m watch hours, according to esports data platform Esports Charts.
The event’s return comes after a turbulent phase for PUBG Mobile esports in India as the franchise faced a series of bans starting in 2020. Although being one of the franchise’s more popular markets, PUBG Mobile and its later introduced India-focused version, Battlegrounds Mobile India (BGMI), were banned by the Indian government, alongside other applications, amidst tensions between the country and China.
BGMI has since been reintroduced to the Indian market earlier this year.
Since then, KRAFTON has also brought back the Battlegrounds Mobile India Series, another major event in the BGMI esports ecosystem. For the broadcast of the tournament, KRAFTON partnered with streaming platform JioCinema.
On an international scale, PUBG Mobile esports fans are also currently experiencing the largest event in the game’s 2023 competitive calendar. The PUBG Mobile Championship 2023 will run until December 10th, with a $3m (~£2.4m) prize pool. According to Esports Charts, the tournament has reached a peak viewership of 650,000 at the time of this writing. Its 2022 edition recorded 852,000 peak viewers.
