New Delhi, June 8, 2021: The Esports Premier League (ESPL), India’s first-ever franchise-based Esports league, has teamed up with smartphone maker Infinix Mobile as the title sponsor for its debut edition with an objective to revolutionise Esports in the nation and popularize it through a countrywide tournament. The tournament is looking forward to tapping into the growing landscape of esports in India to help the competitive gaming community. This segment got a major boost in the last year as an increasing number of users are using smartphones for gaming.
In order to give the Indian Esports ecosystem a complete makeover and increase Esports and gaming in the Indian market with the forthcoming top-class tournament, India Today Group, is all set to roll out Season 1 of the tournament from June 16. The league will feature a massive total prize pool worth Rs 25 lakhs. It has partnered with Garena to build an exclusive gaming platform for Free Fire—the most famous battle royale game currently played by gaming enthusiasts and gamers in the nation. The league will enable players from all over the country to showcase their talent on this national platform for the first time. ESPL will be streamed on several platforms including OTT giant Disney+ Hotstar along with the official YouTube and Facebook channels of India Today and Aaj Tak and their websites.
ESPL intends to be the biggest stage to find and nurture new gaming talent across the country. ESPL will provide all the 8 teams and their players' comprehensive media coverage across various media platforms including digital, print, TV, etc as part of the endeavor to bring gaming to the mainstream and will help upcoming esports professionals get fame and stardom on par with other conventional sports.
While talking about the launch of Esports Premier League (ESPL) and its association with Infinix Mobile, India Today Group Vice Chairperson, Kalli Purie said: “This pandemic and the resultant lockdown have contributed to propelling the esports industry into mainstream entertainment. India Today’s Gaming and Esports platform will provide a thrilling experience to its users through a wide range of games, online tournaments, and an opportunity to win exciting prizes. These are very exciting times as smartphone usage continues to grow exponentially and I believe the partnership with Infinix Mobile will help us intensify our mission of taking Esports to the next level in India.”
Due to the current pandemic and lockdown, ESPL will be contested as a virtual tournament in its inaugural edition and feature more than 700 online games with about 300 plus hours of streaming.
“The Indian online gaming industry is growing at a rate of almost 27% per annum and is estimated to reach $2.8B by 2022. The current pandemic situation has further fuelled the growth of the gaming industry in India. At Infinix, we are part of this revolution by making devices for the mid-range segment that is feature-rich and enhance the users gaming experience, to further amplify the gaming capability of a user our R&D has developed a technology called Darlink which optimizes and improves the performance of a device on several parameters. Our partnership with India Today for the Esports Premier League is just another step towards achieving the same goal. We look forward to a fruitful association and intend to encourage budding talent in this field,” Mr. Anish Kapoor, CEO of Infinix Mobile said while announcing the association in a press release.
The tournament, which will be held over a period of two and a half months, will consist of initial two levels to screen the best eight teams which advance into the grand finale representing eight cities across India including Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Punjab, and Rajasthan.
