The BBC has announced that it’s inked a deal with the London-based esports firm and tournament organiser, Gfinity, which will see the first ever broadcast of esports on a major UK network. BBC Three will host coverage of Gfinity’s newly launched Elite Series which will air live on the online-only BBC3 from today, with six more weeks of broadcasts every Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
The Gfinity Elite League pits 160 professional gamers against one another, competing for a prize pool of £225,000. These competitors will be wearing the sponsored clothing of one of eight esports organisations, with a specialism in one of three games. These games are the first-person shooter Counter-Strike, the arcade brawler Street Fighter, and the football with cars extravaganza that’s Rocket League.
Each game will have its own dedicated competition day: Fridays, from 9pm, are for the intense brawls of team-format Street Fighter V bouts; Saturdays are solely for the clutch AWP tactics of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, also from 9pm. Finally, on Sundays, everyone embraces the intensity of flying rocket cars and a football for an hour of Rocket League, from 5pm.
In the first BBC deal of its kind, @bbcthree is bringing you live eSports coverage, starting tonight
Find out more https://t.co/6GLOmHX5AR pic.twitter.com/8MHyAHneSD
— BBC Sport (@BBCSport) July 28, 2017
BBC Three’s controller, Damian Kavanagh, said, ‘Esports has become hugely popular in the last few years with young audiences so it’s great that BBC Three can bring this to a mainstream audience and create new habits with younger audiences as we stream three of the most popular games on BBC Three across the weekend’.
It’s great to see that esports is getting some mainstream coverage from the BBC, and hopefully this is something that’ll only grow in popularity from here on out.
For more information check out the BBC Three site.
