NODWIN Gaming announced that the ESL India Premiership 2020 will be exclusively broadcast on Disney+ Hotstar under its sports division. The last two editions of this series of tournaments were broadcast on Hotstar.
Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Disney+ Hotstar is a live streaming service owned by Novi Digital Entertainment, a subsidiary of Star India. On April 3, the platform (formerly known as just Hotstar) merged with Disney+, following the purchase of Star India’s parent company 21st Century Fox by Disney in 2019.
The fifth edition of the ESL India Premiership will feature four game titles: FIFA 20, Clash of Clans, PUBG MOBILE, and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive — with a total prize pool of INR 11.5M ($152K USD).
Indian esports tournament organizers have been early-adopters of exclusive media rights deals. The ESL India Premiership 2018: Fall Season was the first tournament to be livestreamed on Hotstar.
“In early 2018, when Disney+ Hotstar took a chance on us, the industry had started to just take off. Esports was not a thing, PUBG MOBILE did not exist and Jio was starting to make a dent,” said Akshat Rathee, co-founder and managing director of NODWIN Gaming.
Following this, DreamHack Mumbai 2018 and DreamHack Delhi 2019 were exclusively streamed on VOOT, a livestream and video-on-demand platform which is a part of Viacom 18 Digital Ventures, the digital arm of Viacom 18.
The COBX Masters 2019 was also streamed on SonyLIV, a livestream and video-on-demand platform of Sony Pictures Networks India Private Limited. However, this was not exclusive and the tournament was also live streamed on Twitch.
Multiple other players including Rheo TV and LOCO have since emerged in the Indian gaming livestream space. Rathee stated that he is keen to continue maintaining a relationship with Disney+ Hotstar who supported his company in the formative years.
“Fast forward to now and the scene is completely different,” Rathee told The Esports Observer. “Tournaments get good viewership. There are close to a dozen live streaming platforms doing esports and we have it on TV, too. The challenges we face are now of growth and scale. It’s important to remember the partners who believed in you at the formative stages and our third year in a row with Hotstar is a testimony to that commitment.”
Starting with the Summer Season (the first of three), the ESL India Premiership 2020’s first live streams on the Disney+ Hotstar platform will begin in June.
Vignesh Raghuram is a staff writer for AFK Gaming.
Disclosure: NODWIN Gaming is a client of and a minority investor in AFK Gaming.
