Mentioned in this article
Companies:
American Video Game League, Betaworks, BITKRAFT Esports Ventures, boom.tv, Boost VC, Crosscut Ventures, DreamHack, First Round Capital, HyperX, NCAA, Tandem Capital, Turtle Beach, Twitch Interactive
- BITKRAFT Seed Fund portfolio company BoomTV has acquired collegiate esports organizer American Video Game League for an undisclosed amount.
- The NCAA announced earlier this year that it will not govern collegiate esports opening the door for third-party organizers to build an infrastructure for collegiate esports.
- Recently, BoomTV integrated a collegiate Fortnite esports competition into its Code Red tournament in a collaboration with American Video Game League.
Esports entertainment platform BoomTV has acquired the American Video Game League (AVGL) in a move to expand collegiate esports. The AVGL is one of the largest producers of collegiate esports events, content, and community initiatives that have included over 1,200 colleges. Financial details of the transaction were not disclosed.
According to BoomTV, more than 40K influencers and brands use its platform to engage their communities and run esports events. The platform is multifunctional, offering tools such as automated score-tracking, streaming, and event hub generation.
In May, the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s (NCAA) Board of Governors voted not to govern collegiate esports, opening the door to third-party organizers to build the scene’s infrastructure. One of those organizers is the AVGL, a company growing college esports through online tournaments, large-scale live events, content, and campus program support. The AVGL has worked with game publishers, brands, gaming events, and content platforms such as DreamHack, Twitch, Turtle Beach, and HyperX.
“Our focus has always been to provide the best competitive experiences for collegiate esports players and fans, and the BoomTV platform will achieve this at scale,” said AVGL CEO Victor Suski in a release. “This strategic acquisition allows us to offer colleges tools and events needed for expansion. This is a huge step forward for the AVGL and collegiate esports.”
In a recent collaboration with the AVGL, BoomTV integrated collegiate competition into its largest tournament (Code Red), providing Fortnite collegiate players with the opportunity to compete head-to-head against several big names in streaming for a $10K USD prize pool.
BoomTV is a BITKRAFT Seed Fund portfolio company since 2016. Other previous investors include Crosscut Ventures, Betaworks, Boost VC, Tandem Capital, First Round Capital, Dylan Flinn, Vikrant Bhargava, and Cheng YuChiang. The company raised $3.5M from those investors in 2016.
