CS:GO esports tournament series BLAST Premier has announced a partnership with media holding company and esports tournament organiser WePlay Esports.
The two-year deal will see WePlay Esports broadcast BLAST’s global CS:GO tournament series exclusively in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) region.
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According to the release, WePlay Esports will obtain the Russian language media rights to broadcast BLAST’s remaining events in 2021 and the entire 2022 season.
Alexander Lewin, VP of Distribution and Programming for BLAST, commented: “We’re delighted to welcome WePlay Esports as our latest broadcast partner – with their extensive expertise in Counter-Strike production, WePlay Esports will help to bring the very best of BLAST Premier to Russia for the remainder of the 2021 season and beyond.”
BLAST currently has a roster of 35 media rights partners and is shown in 18 different languages in over 150 TV territories. For the 2021 season, BLAST has partnered with live streaming service DouYu to hold exclusive broadcast rights in China.
A few weeks ago WePlay Esports also unveiled a new CS:GO academy league. The tournament is expected to provide more competitive experiences to younger players and features a $100,000 (~£72,407) prize pool.
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Maksym Bilonogov, Chief Visionary Officer and General Producer at WePlay Esports, added: “We at WePlay Esports recognise BLAST Premier as one of the best CS:GO circuits out there, which uses technology and creativity to deliver world-class entertainment.
“Our team will go all out to bring the same level of show to the CIS audience and make sure that the love for the game in the region only grows stronger with time.”
Esports Insider says: BLAST has chosen a strong partner to deliver content to its most popular countries for viewership. This is also a huge opportunity for WePlay as it will have a monopoly over the CIS region with Russian-language esports amounting to 200m hours watched in 2020.