Ally Financial Inc. and Rocket League Esports announced today that Ally is deepening its marketing presence in gaming with an investment designed to promote women esports competitors and support the Rocket League Championship Series (RLCS). Through a new women’s tournament featuring Rocket League, Ally will continue to advance its 2022 pledge to reach 50/50 media spend across men’s and women’s sports, including esports. 

Rocket League is an award-winning sports-action video game combining soccer and rocket-powered cars, and the RLCS is the premier professional Rocket League competition. Ally became an official sponsor of the North American RLCS in February 2023, and the relationship includes branding in RLCS broadcasts during the Winter and Spring splits. As part of the sponsorship, Ally will headline the Ally Women’s Open, a women’s Rocket League tournament in March 2023, with a $20,000 prize pool for North America and $20,000 for Europe. 

“Investment in all sports, including esports, has long been biased towards men’s competition. To address this inequity, we’ve made a pledge to reach equal media spend across men’s and women’s sports over the next five years because we believe there should be a level playing field for all athletes – whether on the field, the racetrack, or in gaming,” said Bridget Sponsky, executive director of brand and partnerships at Ally. “This sponsorship gives us a way to engage with the fans and players of a massively popular industry, while providing increased exposure and income opportunities for the incredibly talented female competitors.”

Created by Women Gamers for Women Gamers

The Ally Women’s Open will be produced by Raidiant, a gaming and esports media platform, led by an all-women’s management team, whose mission is to celebrate and champion opportunities for women gamers along with providing a range of resources. The Head of Raidiant, Heather Garozzo, was the first woman inducted into the Esports Insider Hall of Fame (2019) and was inducted into the Women in Games Hall of Fame in 2021.

Ally’s presence in gaming has included unique, value-add experiences for players across a variety of popular game environments, such as Animal Crossing, Minecraft, and Twitch. The relationship with Rocket League Esports is Ally’s first esports sponsorship in competitive gaming. 

In addition to sponsoring the Ally Women’s Open, Ally’s programming will include ad buys and broadcast integrations during the RLCS North American livestreams, as well as inclusions in the league’s associated social campaigns. The sponsorship is also designed to help elevate amateur and semi-pro players, known as the Bubble scene, through a Community Empowerment campaign with Rocket League Esports. These tournaments expose newer players to talent scouts, which can eventually lead to larger financial opportunities by competing in the RLCS. More details on the Bubble tournaments included in the sponsorship will be shared soon. 

Watch the Ally Women’s Open on Rocket League’s Twitch Channel starting at 11:00 a.m. ET / 8:00 a.m. PT on March 26. 

About Ally Financial

Ally Financial Inc. (NYSE: ALLY) is a financial services company with the nation’s largest all-digital bank and an industry-leading auto financing business, driven by a mission to “Do It Right” and be a relentless ally for customers and communities. The company serves more than 11 million customers through a full range of online banking services (including deposits, mortgage, point-of-sale personal lending, and credit card products) and securities brokerage and investment advisory services. The company also includes a robust corporate finance business that offers capital for equity sponsors and middle-market companies, as well as auto financing and insurance offerings through more than 23,000 dealers nationwide.

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IESF President Vlad Marinescu said:

“IESF is extremely proud to be working with FITGMR once again. After receiving amazing feedback from players during the 14th World Esports Championships, we are sure that this year our collaboration will contribute even more to the overall performance. FITGMR supports our goal and mission of providing the best possible environment for our athletes to perform in and continuously promotes the importance of well-being. We can’t wait to see the impact of this partnership in Iasi.”

IESF President Vlad Marinescu

Throughout the next year, the close collaboration between IESF and FITGMR will provide the esports family variety of workshops, exercises, and tips on workouts, nutrition, and mental health while covering FITGMR’s five pillars of health.

FITGMR CEO Kristin Anderson said:

“It is our mission to educate the world on what it means to be a cognitive athlete and to provide those athletes with the tools they need to perform at their highest potential. Changing the narrative around health, well-being, gaming, and esports is a massive undertaking. It is not intuitive to many why the FITGMR 5 Pillars of Health matter to a gamer. Having the IESF behind us, and spreading this message, is a tremendous wind in our sail. Finding partners like IESF who are as passionate as we are at developing the next generation of gamers gives me confidence that
change is not only possible but a certainty.”

FITGMR CEO Kristin Anderson

FITGMR will again be part of the World Esports Championships 2023 in Iasi from August 24 to September 4. They will focus on guiding players on how to reduce stress, and anxiety, maintain their strength and stamina, prevent burnout, and improve team dynamics.
With 120 nations, the 15th WE Championships will be the largest edition of IESF’s flagship event, topping the 2022 WE Championships in Bali, Indonesia, which featured over 600 athletes.

About the International Esports Federation

IESF is the uniting body for World Esports. Founded in 2008 by nine-member nations, IESF is currently composed of 130 Member Federations across five continents. IESF brings together all esports stakeholders to achieve a united ecosystem for the development of sustainable and responsible gaming worldwide. The IESF WE Championships is the biggest multi-sport spectacle of esports in the world. IESF also organizes the annual World Esports Summit in order to support the highest standard of esports governance worldwide.

About FITGMR

FITGMR is a human performance and player development company born out of Cloud9 that has developed the first app specifically designed to meet the mental and physical demands of gamers and esports athletes and offers a science-based curriculum for secondary and post-secondary educators and coaches to support healthy gaming education. FITGMR’s Training Grounds is a premier comprehensive training experience that includes esport-specific in-game training, competitive league play, coaching, and community engagement. Training Grounds has furnished more players to the professional/semi-professional scene as coaches, players, and in esports careers than any other training organization.

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“We are thrilled to announce the details of our 2023 competition alongside FFT. Continuing our last year’s successful partnership, we have created an even more exciting and engaging experience for our players,” Dotan Arad, General Manager of Tennis Clash. “By being part of the Roland-Garros eSeries by BNP Paribas, we are committed to providing our players with the best content and experiences, offering them the chance to compete at Roland-Garros, a dream come true for any tennis fan worldwide.” 

This year’s event will see eight finalists compete in the Grand Final at Roland-Garros itself on Friday, May 26 with qualifiers playing for a share of the €5K prize pool. Seven of the eight places at the final will be awarded to players coming from different qualifying events. Meanwhile, the eighth qualifying place will be awarded to the winner of the 2023 Australian Open Tennis Clash virtual tournament, William Foster who also won the 2022 Roland-Garros eSeries by BNP Paribas event.

A full breakdown on how the eight finalist spots will been determined is as follows:

• 1 slot for the 2023 Australian Open Tennis Clash winner William Foster
• 4 slots for the three open qualifiers, Open Qualifier #1 (winner) February 23 to 27, Open Qualifier #2 (winner) March 23 to 27 & Open Qualifier #3 (winner and runner-up) April 20 to 24
• 1 slot for the Women in Games closed qualifier
• 1 slot for the Handigamers closed qualifier
• 1 slot for the “Twitch Community Clash” closed qualifier

In 2023, Roland-Garros eSeries by BNP Paribas will extend its collaboration with Women in Games – an international charity making gaming a better place for women – and introduce a new collaboration with Handigamers – a French charity helping people with reduced mobility to play video games. Both of these organisations will host closed qualifying events that will see the winners take part in a one-month remote training program facilitated by French esport organisation, Team MCES, ahead of the Grand Final.

Ahead of the Grand Final, all eight finalists will also receive the opportunity to attend an esports workshop courtesy of FFT, ensuring every participant is prepared to give their best performance on matchday itself. FFT is committed to making gaming accessible to everyone and is proud to be one of the few organisations endorsing higher representation in all stages of its competitive environment.  

In 2023, FFT will once again welcome back BNP Paribas as the presenting partner and Renault as the official partner of the event for the sixth and second years in succession respectively. Their continued support has helped to elevate eTennis as a sport and contributed to an increase of top level eTennis tournaments taking place across the world. 

“We are absolutely delighted to be hosting another edition of Roland-Garros eSeries by BNP Paribas for the sixth successive year and can’t wait to see how the competition unfolds over the next few months” said Aymeric Labaste, Head of Roland-Garros International Development “Last year, we saw exponential growth as a result of our switch to a mobile esport tournament using Tennis Clash by Wildlife Studios, and the introduction of our new tournament format.  Through our continued expansion, we’re hoping to further build on the success of previous years and cement our status as the biggest eTennis event in the world.” 

Any members of the public interested in signing up for free to one of the Open Qualifier events can do so via their smartphone or tablet device via the Tennis Clash app, giving many players across the world the opportunity to compete in the event. 

About Roland-Garros eSeries by BNP Paribas

Created in 2018, Roland-Garros eSeries by BNP Paribas is the world’s biggest and most inclusive eTennis tournament. The competition includes six separate qualifying events, including 3 open qualifiers and 3 closed ones held in partnership with Women in Games, Handigamers and Twitch community. The Grand Final features eight competitors and takes place at Roland-Garros on Friday, May 26. In 2023, the competition will be played on the leading video mobile game Tennis Clash, developed by Wildlife Studios. With this new format, Roland-Garros eSeries by BNP Paribas is positioned to increase interest and participation in eTennis globally. 

About Wildlife Studios

Wildlife is one of the world’s largest mobile gaming companies. In over ten years, it has launched more than 60 games, including hits such as Sniper 3D, Zooba, Tennis Clash, War Machines and Colorfy. Founded by brothers Victor and Arthur Lazarte, the company’s games have been downloaded more than 3 billion times across the planet. 

Wildlife has over 1100 employees in five countries around the world, and many positions available – especially in game design, engineering and growth.

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The portal provides esports teams with a new automated platform allowing them to access detailed data from official esports matches, including the ability to get data from their own private scrims. The VDP provides access to data not previously available as part of Riot’s continued commitment to growing competitive VALORANT.

The VDP allows teams to easily search, query, or filter data for match analysis, scrim reviews, talent evaluation, and more. The system is easy to use, fully automated and allows private data access through a secure API or application-based user interface.

We are excited to be working with GRID on crafting the future of esports data for the VALORANT Champions Tour. GRID as a partner is highly aligned with our goals around data accessibility and Riot’s core values. The VALORANT Data Portal is the first step in our shared vision for how we make official VALORANT data more broadly available, starting with our professional teams.

John Knauss, Lead of Competitive Data Programs for Esports at Riot Games

GRID and Riot entered into an exclusive partnership for VALORANT in the beginning of 2022 with the focus on the commercial distribution of official esports data assets through the GRID Data Platform. The release of the VALORANT Data Portal is an expansion of the partnership  with the focus on improving data accessibility across various user groups.

VALORANT has revolutionized the global esports scene and we are proud to participate in this change as a game data partner of Riot. The GRID and Riot’s shared vision for the esports ecosystem powered by game data is becoming a reality with the release of The VALORANT Data Portal.  We aim to change the way fans interact with competitive titles through data and we are proud to partner on this mission with Riot Games.

Moritz Maurer, CEO and Founder at GRID

The portal is being rolled out to the 30 partnered VCT teams across North America, EMEA, and Asia Pacific. Plans surrounding VDP access for the broader VALORANT Esports community will be shared at a later date.

About Riot Games

Riot Games was founded in 2006 to develop, publish, and support the most player-focused games in the world. In 2009, Riot released its debut title, League of Legends, to worldwide acclaim. League has gone on to be the most-played PC game in the world and a key driver of the explosive growth of esports. With League in its second decade, Riot is continuing to evolve the game while delivering new experiences to players with Teamfight Tactics, Legends of Runeterra, VALORANT, League of Legends: Wild Rift, Riot Forge, and multiple work-in-progress titles. Riot is also expanding the world of Runeterra through multimedia projects across music, comic books, board games, and Arcane, its popular animated series. Founded by Brandon Beck and Marc Merrill, and led by CEO Nicolo Laurent, Riot is headquartered in Los Angeles, California, and has 3,000+ Rioters in 20+ offices worldwide.

About GRID

GRID is a B2B software company that serves the video game industry with a complete game data infrastructure, data management, and asset distribution solutions.

The GRID Data Platform allows rights holders to manage and distribute their game data through GRID Portals, to target user groups such as community, pro players, and commercial clients. GRID partners with over 90 rights holders, including Riot Games, KRAFTON, and PGL, and has 350+ integrated data customers in media, betting, player coaching, and more. GRID is headquartered in Berlin with key teams in Poland, Sweden, the US, and China.

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The seventh season of the European Development Championship, organized together by GAM3RS_X and Eden Esports, will kick off on January 30th. The series of games has been running continuously since December 2020, and so far nearly $200,000 has been distributed among the participants as prizes. In the sixth season, representatives of Copenhagen Flames enjoyed victory, scoring phenomenal end of the year and, among others, winning the EDC ensured their promotion to the top 25 of the HLTV ranking. The Danish team is living proof that success at this level, is a straight path to the world’s top.

All matches in the European Development Championship will be streamed on Twitch on the Eden Esports channel. Here’s a look at the distribution of slots and the play-in invitations:

The Play-in phase (January 30th – February 8th) will be played according to a double elimination ladder and four teams will advance to the next stage. The teams participating in this phase are:

The group phase (February 13rd – 20th) will be played in GSL format with four teams in each group. Once all participants have been selected, the teams will be divided into individual groups.

The play-off phase (February 22nd – 27th) will again see sixteen squads – including 8 advancing from the group phase and an additional 8 invited by the organizers, to be announced later in the tournament. The best team will be determined using a single elimination ladder.

The top two teams of each season of the European Development Championship will receive bootcamp invitations in addition to a financial prize. The bootcamp can help them develop their team and individual skills in a city where tournaments such as the ESL Pro League and World Championship qualifiers are played. The distribution of the prize pool is as follows:

• 1st place – $20,000 + bootcamp in Malta
• 2nd place – $10,000 + bootcamp in Malta
• 3-4th place – $5,000
• 5th-8th place – $1,250

The organizers of the European Development Championship are GAM3RS_X and Eden Esports, which have extensive experience in organizing esports events and tournaments. The GAM3RS_X agency’s track record includes working with partners such as BLAST, Starladder and PGL, and has produced thousands of hours of esports broadcasts of CS:GO and other games Eden Esports organizes international online and offline esports competitions such as SuperNova, Champion of Cup, EDC, Malta Vibes and are a fundamental partner of Champion of Champions Tour. Eden Esports aims to make Malta one of the hubs of esports by organizing events, live broadcasts and bringing industry companies to the island.

GamingMalta, Hellcase, GRID, Endorfy and Displate have become partners for the two new seasons of the European Development Championship.

About GamingMalta

GamingMalta is an independent non-profit foundation set up by the Government of Malta and the Malta Gaming Authority (MGA). Tasked with the remit of promoting Malta as a center of excellence in the digital and remote gaming sector globally, it is also responsible for liaising with the local relevant authorities to improve Malta’s attractiveness as a jurisdiction and enhance the ecosystem surrounding the gaming industry.

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The International Esports Federation (IESF) today announced a record number of 120 countries will compete in the national qualifiers round of the 2023 World Esports
Championships, with Iași, Romania, set to host the Finals in September.

With 120 nations, the 15th WE Championships will be the largest edition of IESF’s flagship event, topping the 2022 WE Championships in Bali, Indonesia, which featured over 600 athletes from 106 countries. Bali officially handed over hosting rights to Iași during a special handover at the event’s Closing Ceremony, which also crowned Indonesia as the World Esports champion.

Iași is Romania’s historical capital and most youthful city. It is the country’s second-largest city and home to multiple well-known universities and will provide a fresh take on the WE Championships while engaging a new generation of esports fans. This will mark the second time the WE Championships will be staged in Romania after the country’s capital Bucharest hosted in 2013.

IESF President Vlad Marinescu said:

Iași’s youthful energy and rich history will ensure yet another unforgettable edition of the World Esports Championships. Last year’s event in Bali reflects our progress in promoting esports and empowering the World Esports Family. The 2023 WE Championships will be our biggest edition yet, with 120 countries ready to compete and showcase esports’ ability to break barriers and unite us.

Vlad Marinescu

The first round of the WE Championships, the national qualifiers, has already started worldwide, to be followed by the regional qualifiers starting in May and the Finals in September.

About the International Esports Federation

IESF is the uniting body for World Esports. Founded in 2008 by nine-member nations, IESF is currently composed of 130 Member Federations across five continents. IESF brings together all esports stakeholders to achieve a united ecosystem for the development of sustainable and responsible gaming worldwide. The IESF WE Championships is the biggest multi-sport spectacle of esports in the world. IESF also organizes the annual World Esports Summit in order to support the highest standard of esports governance worldwide.

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First Map: Bind

An unexpected result occurred in the Bind map, chosen by RARE Esports. Zero Zone team performed a lot better than expected. YANKAS‘ Sova performance was enough to make the match watchable. Unable to communicate sufficiently, RARE Esports lost the map by 13-2, surprisingly. Zero Zone brought the series’ score to 1-0 by winning the first map.

Bind Map Match Stats

Second Map: Ascent

The second map was Zero Zone‘s pick, Ascent. Both teams fought fiercely on the Ascent map. RARE Esports must have shaken up from the first map’s lose, since the team wasted no time staying unmotivated and did everything to win the map. Zero Zone finished the first half ahead by 7-5. Switching to the Attackers side, RARE Esports turned the score to a tie by 12-12. In the overtime, RARE Esports continued its success and won the map by 14-12. As a result, the overall score was 1-1, and the Split map was the last map that would determine the result of the competition.

Ascent Map Match Stats

Third Map: Split

On the last map of the competition, Split, both teams tried to fight in full performance. With the motivation from the second map’s win, RARE Esports finished the first half of the map ahead by 9-3. RARE Esports won the important rounds and finished the map by 13-8, even though they performed badly compared to the first half. As a result, RARE Esports moved up to the upper brackets by winning the competition by 2-1. Zero Zone, on the other hand, became the first team to say goodbye to VCT Masters Turkey.

Split Map Match Stats

RARE Esports, managed to become one of the 2 teams to move up from the loser’s group. RARE Esports’ opponent will be the winner of the fastPay Wildcats vs. Oxygen Esports match which will take place on 18 March.

You can reach the official VALORANT Turkey Twitch channel from here to follow the VCT Masters Turkey competitions live.

VCT Masters Turkey: BBL Esports Vs Cyber Skull Esports!

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Sangal Esports Gets Its Second Win In ESEA Premier League S36

In yesterday’s ESEA Premier Season 36 Europe match between PACT and Sangal Esports, the Turkish team Sangal had some issues regarding the server. After the team captain, MAJ3R posted a tweet about the situation to reach out the ESEA representatives on Twitter.

ESEA admin Kamil Plichta responded to the Sangal captain MAJ3R’s tweet.

First of all, I don’t understand what my nationality has to do with any of this. Before the first map, you reported the issue 13 minutes after the scheduled start of the match – it should not happen, because you can join the server 15 minutes before your match to test it.

The first map of your match finished at 20:36 CET, although you reported that you still need a server change at 20:54 – after all, we decided to switch the server and when the new server was finally ready, you still delayed the start of the 2nd map.

Going to Twitter, when I’m still talking with your coach, should not be your first way to fix things. Being punctual, reporting, and updating on the issue to the admin asap might be really helpful.

Kamil Plichta

While the competition was going on, there was no response from MAJ3R. But no matter what, it is hard to understand why Sangal did not test the server when given the chance. ESEA admin Kamil Plichta shared the details of the issue, even the exact time.

Later in the night, team coach Canpolat Yıldıran (HARDSTYLE) and MAJ3R apologized for the misunderstanding.

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Nuke

The first map was Nuke, chosen by PACT Esports. The match lasted for 41 rounds and was quite challenging. The first half ended with the lead of Sangal Esports by 13-2. However, Sangal’s good performance did not last in the second half. The score was 15-15, and the match went into overtime. PACT Esports moral support from the second half, combined with Sangal Esports’ wrong plays; PACT Esports won the overtime by 7-4, the map by 22-19, and brought the overall score of the competition to 1-0.

Nuke Map Player Statistics

Engin ‘MAJ3R‘ Küpeli’s Twitter Post

Sangal Esports’ team captain Engin ‘MAJ3R‘ Küpeli posted about the in-game problems and conflict with the admin. However, the team was unable to find the support they wished for since most of the viewers reacted badly to Sangal.

After the Twitter post, the competition was moved to another server. But, the in-game delay issue was not fixed and Sangal played with the same connection speed in the second map.

Inferno

Sangal Esports chose its most played map lately, Inferno. Starting in the Terrorist side, Sangal Esports, again, finished the first half ahead by 11-4. In the second half, with the comeback of PRAC Esports from 13-5, the score had come to 15-15. However, being very experienced in the Inferno map, Sangal won the overtime by 4-2, and the map by 19-17. The overall score was 1-2.

Inferno Map Player Statistics

Dust 2

As the last map of the series, Dust 2 was picked. Sangal Esports started on the CT side and finished the first half ahead by 9-6 despite some unfortunate rounds. Sangal put up a better fight in the second half compared to the first. They only lost 1 round and won the map by 16-7.

With these results, Sangal Esports got its second win in ESEA Premier League Season 36. The team has 2 wins and 4 loses in the tournament.

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Until this match, Sangal had 1 win 3 loses in Group B. LDLC, on the other hand, had 2 wins 4 loses.

The first map of the match was Nuke, chosen by LDLC. Even though both teams started good, LDLC won the lead starting from the end of the first half. With its lead of 7-0, LDLC finished the first half by 10-5.

In the second half, LDLC started the match with a 5 round strike, making the score 15-5, and later, won the match by 16-6.

The second map was Inferno by Sangal’s choice. Sangal Esports managed to get the lead after starting nicely. However, just like the first match, LDLC dominated the second match. LDLC won the map with a score of 16-8. As a result, LDLC won the competition by 2-0.

With these standings, Sangal Esports is placed in the 8th, LDLC in the 5th place in the group.

Sangal Esports’ Captain Makes A Statement After Their Loss

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