Bharti Airtel on Thursday announced its partnership with Nodwin Gaming to launch ‘Airtel India Esports Tour’ to take E-sports in India to next level with further growth. Esports has the potential to become a large part of the country’s mainstream potential culture with online gaming tipped to become a one billion plus market in India by 2021 with 620 million gamers.
Airtel India Esports Tour is a first of a kind in the segment with it also having a national ranking and awarding system for Indian Esports-players based on their year long performance across top tournaments which will be used to create a points table for all participants.
The tour will initially cover NODWIN tournaments across PUBG Mobile, CS:GO, Clash of Clans, FIFA, etc with later being extended to premier tournaments like India Premiership, Dreamhack India, KO Fight Nights, The Northeast Cup, and PAN Fest.
The Esports Tour will be broadcasted live on Airtel’s digital offerings with it looking to take it to newer audiences. Nodwin will initially seed the Esports Tour by its extensive tournament network but the tournament will carry weightage independent of the organiser.
“At Airtel, it has always being our aspiration to support a digital India. Gaming is the next frontier of entertainment and it gives us great pleasure to announce our partnership with NODWIN to unlock the potential of E-sports in India. E-sports is taking a higher share of where our youth spend their time and we look forward to a deep partnership with NODWIN to evolve this space and support the youth in India.”
Adarsh Nair, Chief Product Officer, Bharti Airtel
“NODWIN Gaming believes that by binding the elements of independent tournaments into a single storyline we will give rise to a new culture in the competitive world of Indian esports. The teams and players will now look up to perform throughout the year rather than focusing on few big standalone tournaments in a year.” said Akshat Rathee, Founder and MD, NODWIN Gaming.
