Rocket League has become quite the sensation over the past few years, blissfully blending together racing and soccer, while at the same time introducing promotions with everyone from Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice to Back To the Future to, most recently, Mario and the Nintendo Switch. Now, it’s looking to make a huge impact on the esports front…again.
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NBC Sports Group has announced that it is pairing up with FACEIT and Psyonix to create a new 2v2 Rocket League Tournament, the first of its kind. It will feature international competitors, and it’ll kick off as soon as next month.
The tournament will see the opening rounds held on the FACEIT platform starting on July 22nd, with the top competitors making their way into in-studios regional finals starting on August 5-6, continuing on August 12-13. The tournament will conclude with the Grand Finals on August 26-27, where 16 teams will battle it out to attempt to win a $100,000 prize pool.
NBC Universal and Comcast expect the tournament to produce more than 40 hours of event coverage across live-streaming platforms, as well as video on demand. In addition, senior vice president of NBC Sports Ventures, Rob Simmelkjaer, also confirmed that Television Deportes will also reach out to a Spanish audience with the forthcoming tournament, and SyFy will take care of other international audiences. They’ll also assure that the Grand Finals can be seen worldwide, including the U.K., Germany and Australia.
This is a pretty big tournament as far as Rocket League goes, especially with NBC Sports involved. While the tournament itself likely won’t be seen on an NBC broadcast channel, it’ll still be a substantial amount of reach, especially with FACEIT and other partners involved. It should definitely make a strong global impact, and lead into even more popularity for Rocket League – which means good news for when it makes its Nintendo Switch debut later this year, complete with Nintendo-exclusive content.
So heads up, Rocket League esports fans. The tourney kicks off next month, and we’re bound to see some amazing plays out of it as a result. And you thought you were good at Rocket League…
