Sports Media Report
Allied Esports today announced its first product launch as part of a strategic alliance and exclusive agreement signed this year with TV Azteca, a Grupo Salinas company and the top sports network in Mexico, to create and deliver live esports experiences and esports-related content for the Mexico market and throughout Latin America.
Titled NATION VS NATION™, Allied Esports’ first event and broadcast production in Latin America will feature a squad of four U.S. players as they battle a Mexican team of 40 total players, including featured and celebrity squads and 32 fan participants, in PLAYERUNKNOWN’S BATTLEGROUNDS with the inaugural NATION VS NATION trophy and cash prizes on the line. The event will take place on Tuesday, May 14 at Foro Totalplay in Mexico City.
“Latin America represents a massive and transformative opportunity for Allied Esports,” said Frank Ng, co-CEO of Ourgame Holdings International, owner of Allied Esports. “By combining our live events experience with TV Azteca’s unequalled reach as the number one sports network in Mexico, this crucial esports ecology partnership will be a major driver in building out the offline-online environment at the core of Allied Esports’ global strategy.”
The global debut of NATION VS NATION will also usher in TV Azteca’s latest platform, Azteca Gaming, joining the company’s leading news, sports and entertainment content across digital assets and more than 40 local broadcast and regional free-to-air stations reaching over 95 percent of the Mexican market. The event and broadcast will launch a new era in mass media esports content in the region.
“The transformation process of TV Azteca, to bring the best television, has led to set an eye in new markets, towards an audience that consumes esports,” said Benjamín Salinas, CEO of TV Azteca. “Sports are part of our strength, and now with esports, we find a way to connect with a growing market in Mexico.”
Led by captain Johnathan “Fatal1ty” Wendel, one of most accomplished professional gamers in history and an inaugural member of the International Video Game Hall of Fame, the U.S. NATION VS NATION team will also include: professional gamer and streamer, Avori; professional player for Ghost Gaming and winner of the PGL-PUBG Spring Invitational 2018, Miccoy; and Ghost Gaming’s soon-to-be professional player, Vegas.
Team Mexico will be led by a featured squad of professional players and streamers – Alberto “QUERETAROCK” Oceguera, Nicol “NicolSteel” Toriz, Anthony “TMX5” Fernández and Isaac “Clumzy” Ramíres – as well as a number of surprise celebrities and guests.
The remaining Mexican team will be formed through two rounds of qualifying earlier in the day. Each qualifying heat will include two games in which players will be ranked by a point system based on kills and finish. The top 32 players will move on to the finals where they will join the featured and celebrity squads and compete against the U.S. team in a best-of-three competition.
Team USA will be designated as the winner of each game if they are the last squad standing, while a Team Mexico win will occur if the U.S. squad is eliminated. The first team to reach two wins will take home the inaugural NATION VS NATION trophy.
NATION VS NATION will air on TV Azteca platforms starting at 6 p.m. local time. The event will also be live streamed on TV Azteca’s digital properties. Allied Esports will offer a live English simulcast of the stream on twitch.tv/AlliedEsports.
Today’s announcement follows news from March 2019 in which TV Azteca and the World Poker Tour® agreed to bring WPT’s poker content library, premier poker events and the development of social poker and exclusively customized gaming products to a growing Latin America audience.
As previously announced, Allied Esports and its sister company, the World Poker Tour, both currently owned by Ourgame Holdings International, will be acquired, subject to shareholder and regulatory approval and the satisfaction of other conditions to closing, by Black Ridge Acquisition Corp. (NASDAQ: BRAC), to form Allied Esports Entertainment.
For additional information about NATION VS NATION and other Allied Esports initiatives, follow @AlliedEsports and visit AlliedEsports.gg.
