Bookmaker Pinnacle has announced a new $100,000 (~£81,500) Dota 2 competition to celebrate the company’s 25th anniversary.
The online 20-team event will take inspiration from the bookmaker’s Pinnacle Cup esports series, however, a new format will be utilised.
Set to take place from November 20th to December 6th, the Pinnacle: 25 Year Anniversary Show will feature a Group and Playoff stage. Teams will be split into four groups with the top three organisations making it to the double-elimination playoff bracket. Competitors have yet to be announced.
Pinnacle will be featured as a principal partner of the competition, with the bookmaker also continuing its relationships with game data platform GRID and Eden Esports, the latter of which will be the event’s production partner.
The event will be hosted across Pinnacle’s live-stream channels in both English and Russian.
Founded in 1998, Pinnacle has gone on to establish itself as a well-known non-endemic bookmaker that focuses on the esports sector. This includes Pinnacle claiming that it was the first bookmaker to post an esports betting market back in 2010.
Since then, the company has announced various esports-focused initiatives and activations, including the launch of a Dota 2 and Counter-strike tournament series, the Pinnacle Cup.
Stuart Bridges, Senior Manager of Esports Marketing at Pinnacle, commented: “We’re excited to launch our 25 Year Anniversary Show. Pinnacle has a long-standing history supporting communities as well as the larger esports scene. We remain committed to building on what we’ve collectively achieved with our tournaments over the years.
“We continue to remain dedicated to the esports community, ensuring that the teams, organisations and players continue to have an opportunity to compete against one another, and for some teams, compete against the very best in the world right now.”
The Pinnacle: 25 Year Anniversary Show comes almost directly after Dota 2 annual esports world championship The International following its conclusion last month. According to esports data platform Esports Charts, the event secured a peak viewership of 1.44m viewers.
