Sports in Esports (SIES) has announced the launch of the Ecricket World Series, that will be played on Real Cricket 20, slated to begin on Aug 01st and will be played online due to ongoing coronavirus pandemic. At the end of each regular season, there will be a two-week finals period which will be streamed, with the grand finals eventually being held as an in-person live event, if the pandemic restrictions allowed to do so.
Esports Gaming League (EGL) has been confirmed as the platform partner for the tournament, along with Nautilus Gaming, the publishers of Real Cricket 20. The prize purse will be crowdfunded using tokens that enable players to enter the competition.
The global esports market is expected to generate $973.9 million in 2020 and $1194.8 million in 2021. Amid the coronavirus pandemic, majority of international events are looking to make a switch towards alternative formats, which includes tournaments being held online instead of offline versions and more regional based events being planned in place of hosting international events.
While the organizers have expressed their vision of tapping into the Indian audience ecosystem for the popularity of the sport to rise in the coming years, it has to be noted that India has been a growth market for Mobile esports in the past year or so, due to favourable demographics and rising growth in smartphone penetration and Internet. India is a market that is expected to get close to a $1 Billion in market revenue by 2022 in online gaming, and for a country full of cricket-crazy enthusiasts, the eSport version of the game could be equally lucrative if the prize pools in the tournaments are catchy.
