Esports Premier League signs Loco as digital broadcast partner

Esports Premier League (ESPL) has roped in gaming streaming platform Loco as its exclusive digital broadcast partner for the second season of the event. All matches of the second season will be live-streamed exclusively on the app and website of the company.

This year’s league is set to engage esports athletes across the country in a popular battle royale game, Battlegrounds Mobile India (BGMI)’ and carries a prize pool of ₹1 crore. The league will be played in two separate stages in the initial phase—online qualifiers and invitational qualifiers—to shortlist the top 16 teams. The first 12 teams, top two teams from the open qualifiers and top ten teams from the invitational qualifiers, will progress directly into the finals.

The teams ranked from 3 to 10 in the online qualifiers and teams ranked from 11 to 18 from invitational qualifiers will compete for the other two spots available in the finals.

The Esports Premier League had also roped in Chinese smartphone brand, Tecno Mobile as its presenting sponsor for the second edition of the country’s first franchise-based esports league.

Loco brings together gaming communities, creators and viewers. The grand finals of the league will be hosted via a LAN event, making it the league’s first-offline grand finals to be hosted anywhere, it said.

ESPL’s director Vishwalok Nath said: “With shared values and a compelling gaming proposition, we are super excited to team up with the gaming streaming platform. We are pleased to be working together with the team to create interesting and engaging content for the esports fans and the community out there. We are always keen to associate with brands that share the same passion for esports as us and are looking forward to a fruitful association.”

Ashwin Suresh, founder of Loco said, “We will play a pivotal role in growing the fanbase for ESPL and providing yet another entertaining experience for the Indian gaming community.”

According to a recent FICCI-EY media and entertainment report 2022, content creation and concurrent viewership around gaming saw a massive surge in India and there is also a meteoric rise in esports viewership, from 6 lakh in 2020 to 20 lakh hours in 2021.