Esports Premier League (ESPL) has roped in India’s leading gaming streaming platform, LOCO as its exclusive digital broadcast partner for the second season of the event which is fast gaining popularity.

All matches of the second season will be live-streamed exclusively on Loco’s app and website (loco.gg).

Loco is a virtual world of gaming communities that provides exclusive space to gaming creators and viewers. In the last few years, Loco has witnessed exponential growth. Daily active viewers have scaled by15x whereas monthly active viewers have seen 8x growth. Monthly active streamers have grown 5x times and live watch hours have scaled 78x times since January, 2021.

The Grand Finals of the league will be hosted via LAN event, making it the league’s first-ever offline Grand Finals.

Esports Premier League has already roped in global premium smartphone brand, TECNO Mobile as its presenting sponsor for the second edition of the country’s first franchise-based esports league. TECNO Mobile plans to promote its upcoming smartphone phone, TECNO Pova 3 through this league. The poised to launch smartphone will give a class-apart gaming experience to the users. It not only offers a super-fast processing speed but also comes with a massive battery.

This year’s league is set to engage esports athletes across the country in a high-voltage action of the most popular battle royale game, ‘BATTLEGROUNDS MOBILE INDIA (BGMI)’ and carries a massive prize pool of Rs. 1 crore.

Talking about the announcement of the league’s association with Loco, ESPL Director Vishwalok Nath said: “With shared values and a compelling gaming proposition, we are super excited to team up with India’s leading gaming streaming platform Loco.”

“We are pleased to be working together with the team to create interesting and engaging content for the esports fans and the community out there. We are always keen to associate with brands that share the same passion for esports as us and are looking forward to a fruitful association.”

According to a recent FICCI-EY media and entertainment report 2022, content creation and concurrent viewership around gaming saw a massive surge in India and there is also a meteoric rise in esports viewership, from 600,000 hours in 2020 to 2 million hours in 2021.

Commenting on the partnership, Ashwin Suresh, Founder, Loco, said, “Loco will play a pivotal role in growing the fanbase for ESPL and providing yet another entertaining experience for the Indian gaming community. As the exclusive broadcast partner for the league, we will provide fans with tons of exclusive content and a chance to interact with their favourite streamers. We’re excited to partner with the India Today Group on this landmark esports league as we continue to actively support the growth of the esports ecosystem in India.”

Highly active users spend over one hour daily on Loco, making it the gaming community’s platform of choice for a seamless streaming and highly engaging fan experience.

The league will be played in two separate stages in the initial phase—online qualifiers and invitational qualifiers—to shortlist the top 16 teams. The first 12 teams, top-2 teams from the open qualifiers and top-10 teams from the invitational qualifiers, will progress directly into the finals.

The teams ranked from 3 to 10 (7 teams) in the online qualifiers and teams ranked from 11 to 18 from invitational qualifiers will compete for the other two spots available in the finals. The upcoming edition of India’s premier esports league, ESPL has already kick-started their online qualifiers.