Esports

PlayVS Raises $50M for High School Esports, H3CZ Departs OpTic for NRG


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High school esports startup PlayVS brings its total funding to $96M, the longtime CEO of OpTic Gaming is now co-CEO of NRG Esports, and the League of Legends community is frustrated by ticketing issues.

Missed any of the biggest esports business news last week? The TEO Monday Morning Briefing recaps the top headlines from the last seven days!


PlayVS, a software startup building a platform for competitive esports experiences focusing on high school esports, announced it raised a $50M Series C led by return investor, New Enterprise Associates. This latest investment round brings the company’s total funding to $96M.

Starting this October, PlayVS’ platform will be available in all 50 U.S. states. According to the company, over 13K schools, which represent 68% of the country’s schools, are on the waitlist to build an esports program through PlayVS ⁠(for comparison, 14.2K high schools in the U.S. have an American football program).


Hector “H3CZ” Rodriguez, the longtime CEO of OpTic Gaming, has left the organization and taken a new position as co-CEO of NRG Esports. His departure comes after Immortals Gaming Club acquired OpTic Gaming parent company Infinite Esports & Entertainment in June. According to a joint statement issued by Immortals and Rodriguez before the NRG news came out, the two sides had discussed him staying with OpTic Gaming going forward, but he opted to pursue another opportunity.

Soon after, NRG tweeted that Rodriguez had joined the organization as its new co-CEO, with a short video showing him putting on an NRG hoodie. Just last week, Activision Blizzard announced that NRG had acquired the Chicago franchise spot in the Call of Duty Global League. OpTic Gaming is best known for its success and championships in Call of Duty, and the team was formerly based in Chicago.


Tickets for Riot Games’ League of Legends World Championships 2019 Finals in the AccorHotels Arena in Paris went on sale last Monday. Tickets sold out within minutes while many fans report they didn’t get a chance to access the website handling sales just to find tickets being offered for up to 10 times the original price by scalpers within minutes.

A link for partners to purchase tickets for the event two hours before the official launch of ticket sales got leaked, causing confusion within the community. Also, several communication errors were made by Riot Games, adding to the frustration of fans who were not able to secure tickets for themselves. 

In the second half of 2019, this is already the second highly relevant esports tournament creating outrage in the community due to ticket scalping following similar issues occurring during The International in Shanghai.


Sponsorships and Partnerships Round-Up

Apparel brand H4X has signed a trio of pro players as new esports ambassadors and re-signed an existing ambassador, with branded collections coming from two of the players. NRG Esports Counter-Strike: Global Offensive player Tarik “Tarik” Celik is one of the new additions, and he will have his own apparel collection releasing this fall. The other new player ambassadors are Evil Geniuses Dota 2 player Tal “Fly” Aizik and New York Red Bulls FIFA player Mike LaBelle.

2K Games has announced the NBA 2K20 Global Championship, a new international tournament that features 1v1 gameplay and a total prize pool of $145K. Held in partnership with ESL, as well as the National Basketball Association (NBA), and National Basketball Players Association (NBPA), the NBA 2K20 Global Championship spans a number of online and offline events between October 2019 and February 2020.

Nintendo of Europe and DreamHack will collaborate for the upcoming Super Smash Bros. Ultimate European Circuit, a series of official tournaments to crown a regional champion. The series will span eight events from October until June 2020, with November’s DreamHack Winter 2019 in Sweden, January’s DreamHack Leipzig 2020 in Germany, and June’s DreamHack Summer in Sweden anchoring the schedule. The grand finals will be held at DreamHack Summer.

San Francisco 49ers cornerback Richard Sherman has been announced as a new shareholder and global brand ambassador for Luminosity Gaming. Sherman will appear at Luminosity Gaming activations in the year ahead, and will help with player personnel decisions as the organization’s newly-named captain.





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