Tournament organisers ESL and DreamHack have entered an exclusive broadcast deal with Chinese live streaming platform HUYA.
The one-year deal will see the CS:GO Pro Tour and prominent Dota 2 tournaments broadcast exclusively on HUYA for 2020 in standard Mandarin along with other Chinese languages and dialects.
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The deal comes after negotiations between Modern Times Group (MTG), the parent company of ESL and DreamHack, and HUYA collapsed in January, resulting in MTG’s share price to fall 15.08 percent when the announcement was made.
The new agreement covers all upcoming tournaments from the ESL Pro Tour, including the ESL Pro League circuit, ESL One tournaments, and Intel Extreme Masters events. Alongside securing the rights to all ESL Pro Tour components, HUYA has also secured the rights to broadcast DreamHack CS:GO and Dota 2 tournaments through a sub-licensing agreement.
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While MTG has been exploring options for an expansion into the Chinese market, HUYA has been further solidifying its presence in the Western market. The platform has secured or renewed deals with Latin American tournament organiser Live Media, Team Liquid, and Team Secret in recent months.
Esports Insider says: This is quite surprising considering the lapse in collaboration we saw previously, but the nature of this deal is rather standard. Broadcast rights are becoming a bigger piece of the pie for tournament organisers and HUYA’s undoubtedly a good choice when looking to accommodate Chinese fans.
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