COMPETITION

The Six Invitational is returning to Montreal from Feb. 7-19. The event will see the top 20 teams battle it out to lift the hammer. By the end of the Six Jönköping Major, we will know the 16 teams qualified for the Six Invitational 2023 through the Global Standings. 4 spots will still be up for grabs in December and January via the Six Invitational Qualifiers in Asia-Pacific, Europe, Latin America, and North America.

Call of Duty League rolled out its format and schedule for the 2023 season, with opening week kicking off on Dec. 2. This season the qualifier weeks will consist of three weeks of online gameplay, during which time each team will play five games. Those three weeks will determine the seeding for the LAN matches at team-hosted major tournaments. Major I will be league hosted, with subsequent majors hosted by the Boston Breach, OpTic Texas, the New York Subliners, and Toronto Ultra respectively.

Halo World Championships 2022 wrapped up on Oct. 24 with OpTic Gaming taking home the trophy. The event saw 1.9 million hours watched across 34 hours of airtime, according to Esports Charts. The event saw an average of 55.7K viewers and peaked with 143.5K with OpTic Gaming vs. Cloud9 on Playoffs Day 2 scoring as the most popular game of the tournament.

Riot Games partnered up with Lexis Partners to offer the 2022 League of Legends World Championship Final (Worlds) on Nov. 5, as a live special event at select Regal theatres nationwide. The Opening Ceremony Presented by Mastercard, which will feature music icon Lil Nas X performing the Worlds 2022 anthem “STAR WALKIN,” will begin at 7p ET. “Worlds is the biggest esports event of the year, and this collaboration with Lexis Partners will help us bring the excitement of the World Final to big screens across the world,” said Naz Aletaha, Global Head of LoL Esports at Riot Games. “We look forward to providing the community with another way to experience the sport and spectacle that makes Worlds so special.”

Disneyland Paris will play host to the Brawl Stars World Finals 2022. The event kicks off on Nov. 25 with 16 teams in contention.

EBS 2022 (Nov. 1-3, click here for tickets!)

This is your final call! The best EBS ever is ready to rumble next week, serving up a lineup unlike anywhere else in the world. This year will range from director/producer Peter Berg to our Congress of Team CEOs to The Tempest Awards to international federations to special events for brands only! What a week and what a crowd to mingle with. Come join us and take a look at the next level of entertainment. Click the link above to join us!

Join SuperAwesome and a panel of marketers from adidas, Victoria’s Secret & Co.’s newest tween brand happy nation, and Publicis Sports & Entertainment on 11/2, to learn how they approached their next gen projects. This is a brands-only lunch event taking place at EBS next week. Request an invite now.

SPONSORSHIP & ACTIVATION

Monster Energy is partnering with EA and Respawn Entertainment for the launch of three new limited-edition Apex Legends cans available in-store nationwide. Customers can be on the lookout for special cans of Monster Original Green, Monster Lo-Carb, and Monster Zero Ultra with art depicting three Legends: Octane, Pathfinder, and Lifeline. Customers who purchase these limited-edition Apex Legends cans of Monster can also unlock exclusive in-game content and other perks.

The Panda Cup continues to add partners to its roster, this time announcing the addition of Steelcase as the series’ fourth non-endemic sponsor. The deal marks the brand’s first esports activation in North America.

Piedmont and Ghost Gaming are forming a duo dedicated toward health and wellness programming and activations for amateur and professional videogame players across Georgia. As part of the partnership, Piedmont becomes the exclusive health-care partner of the Georgia Esports League. For GEL college competitors and Ghost Gaming’s professional competitors, Piedmont and Ghost Gaming will provide guidance regarding the importance of physical, mental, and nutritional wellbeing to competitive and professional success. “Partnering with Piedmont allows us to highlight the importance of physical health and mental health with our Ghost Gaming competitors and across the broader gaming community,” said Todd Harris, Ghost Gaming CEO. “

BLAST Premier is tapping CSM Sport and Entertainment to serve as its Sales Agency of Record. CSM will help BLAST Premier secure commercial partnerships in the future. “We are delighted to be working alongside BLAST Premier as it looks to continue its global expansion,” said Debs Scott-Bowden, CSM’s Head of Gaming & Esports. “BLAST is at the forefront of elite-level esports entertainment, reaching millions of fans in every corner of the globe, which provides an exciting proposition for prospective partners.”

Global esports organization Gen.G announced its latest partnership, a contest with King’s Hawaiian called “The King’s Hawaiian Slider Sunday Cook-Off,” which pits two gamers, Raynday and Jalon, head to head to see who creates the best recipe for Slider Sunday. The competition begins on Nov. 11 at a Southern California grocery store where the two competitors will race to find their ingredients. The winner of the grocery race will start the official cook-off challenge with an advantage they can use during the livestreamed finale at 2p on Nov. 13 via the team’s Twitch channel.

The National Football League and Enthusiast Gaming Holdings saw the debut of NFL Family Game Night, a new three-part special series of NFL Tuesday Night Gaming designed as a platform for families and younger fans to play alongside their favorite players and gamers in a “fun and entertaining format.” The previously announced series opens with new media sponsorships from Nickelodeon and Universal Pictures, alongside existing sponsor Hulu + Live TV.

Xfinity and FaZe Holdings announced plans to develop original content, private fan events, exclusive merchandise, and more, further expanding upon an agreement that recently began with FaZe Swagg’s appearance in Xfinity’s Unbeatable Internet campaign with Ed Helms. The goal of the partnership is to “celebrate creators, the gaming industry’s biggest moments, and to highlight the integral role that fast and reliable connectivity to the Internet plays in the ecosystem.” The two companies will host a series of private music and gaming-crossover events for college students, The Gig.

TEAMS

FaZe Clan revealed the team’s official entry into a new professional esports category with the addition of Apex Legends. FaZe Clan’s new Apex Legends team will make their debut by competing for the first time at Apex Legends Global Series Year 3, set to begin in November 2022 with a trio of LAN tournaments and over $5,000,000 in prize pool winnings at stake. The addition of Apex Legends brings FaZe Clan’s total professional esports roster up to 12 total teams with over 40 professional players and 35 world championships.

Youth esports franchise XP League announced that DarkZero Esports will become its first official pro-team partner. As part of the deal, XP League will align its brand with DarkZero to further promote youth esports and mentorship within the industry. In addition, the org will work closely with XP League on the brand’s Tilt Cancer campaign in collaboration with the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society (LLS). DarkZero will be sponsoring ten LLS players so they can join its teams.

PLATFORMS & WEB3

Super League Gaming announced the return for the third year of Minehaunt Spooktacular, the company’s Halloween initiative. Presented in partnership with Netflix, this year’s event will see kids and adults engage in all the spooky fun across multiple platforms – Minecraft and Roblox, as well as on TikTok. The experience features characters from Netflix’s upcoming stop-motion animated feature Wendell & Wild.

ESL FACEIT Group, Kolex, and 15 esports teams announced a new partnership to launch next-gen esports collectibles in an initiative dubbed ESL Collectibles. The items will powered by the Kolex Platform and will kick-off at IEM Rio and includes teams such as Astralis, BIG, Complexity, EFG, Ence, Evil Geniuses, FaZe Clan, Fnatic, Furia, G2, Heroic, Mouz, NAVI, Ninjas in Pyjamas, Team Liquid, and Team Vitality. The launch features new digital moments, on-site quests, and free-to-claim collectibles.

PUBG: Battlegrounds developer and publisher KRAFTON is tapping Bayes Esports in a move that will give the company access to KRAFTON’s data for PUBG’s esports competitions. Bayes Esports’ COO & Managing Director Amir Mirzaee stated “We couldn’t be happier to welcome KRAFTON in helping them support the global esports and gaming community with an official game data offering. We view their involvement as critical in order to take esports as a sport to the next level of global engagement.”

REV/XP Presents… Caru of Fanjoy

In this week’s episode of REV/XP Presents, Chris Mann catches up with Caru of fanjoy. Caru is the VP of Talent and helps connect creators to brands.

Click here to watch this week’s interview or visit esportsbiz.com.

TRIVIA
Last horror question! What two colors are Freddy Krueger’s sweater? (Email [email protected] with your answer and be sure to include your name, company and city).

Answer to Our Last Sports Trivia Question
What was Sigourney Weaver’s character name in the Alien franchise? Answer: Ellen Ripley. Kudos: Matt Deprey-C-SPAN/DC; C.J. Bottitta-Big Picture Productions/Apex; Andy Pittman-TAMU/College Station; Lorrie Shilling/El Segundo; David Westberg-SAG•AFTRA Federal Credit Union/Burbank; Luke Watson-Bright Moments/LA; Tom Moore-Kalt Productions/LA; David Gagne-Jacket Industries/LA