ESL continues to grow and expand in leaps and bounds - partnering up with Emirates Airline to provide esports viewing entertainment on all flights by June 2018.
The airline will begin to roll out on-demand esports content from ESL on the Inflight Entertainment Systems starting in March 2018 and reaching all 150 destinations by June. The content will include replays of ESL's biggest events across multiple disciplines.
- Torsten Haux, VP of Global Media Rights at ESL
ESL has been on a nonstop mission to increase visibility and bring esports to mainstream over the course of the last few years.
With the current laptop and tablet ban in place for flights originating from eight Middle East and African countries to the US and new possible talks of expansion into and out of other destinations, ESL's new venture may just provide a bit of relief for esports fans traveling.
ESL progression and growth
ESL has an audience of over 100 million digital viewers with over 2,000 hours of live gaming and esports content. It has been reported that expectations are the broadcast will reach more territories accommodating the 2 billion gamers and 250 million esports fans that ESL expects the industry will have by the end of next year.
In July of 2015 Modern Times Group (MTG) signed an agreement to acquire 74% of Turtle Entertainment, the world’s largest esports company that operates under the well-known ESL brand. The ground breaking €78 million acquisition gave MTG - a non-esports based company, the majority of ownership.
Shortly after, in November 2015, MTG announced their complete acquisition of DreamHack - one of the world’s largest esports companies and organizer of the world’s largest digital festivals - for an enterprise value* of SEK 244 million (over 28 million USD).
Last April ESL announced their plans to launch their own Esports Television channel. Almost a year later in Feburary earlier this year the group reported plans to elevate esports into television style production. The first step in their venture was to partner up with former Fox TV executive David Hill to work on special projects; including training production teams and recruiting new broadcast talent to bring esports production value on par with television standards.
*The enterprise value (EV) measures the value of the ongoing operations of a company. It is a measure of the theoretical takeover price that an investor would have to pay in order to acquire a particular company, free of its debts and liabilities.
