The Australian Esports League (AEL) has chosen OVO Mobile as its exclusive broadcast partner for the next five years, in which a dedicated esports channel will be created.
The esports channel on OVOPlay will start streaming content from next Monday, beginning with the first episode of the newly created AEL University Cup.
The AEL University Cup will feature competition fought between a number of teams from universities across Australia in the first 10 weeks of competition.
There are currently 28 universities across the country with student-led esports or competitive gaming clubs, which the AEL University Cup intends to bring together to improve prospects for students interested in developing their esports career.
In the first year, OVO will offer more than 140 hours of exclusive content with expert commentary and analysis produced by AEL, reaching an expected audience of one million Australians.
Matt Jones, chief executive officer at OVO, said: “Esports is the future of sport, and traditional sport broadcasters who ignore that are in immediate danger of becoming irrelevant to kids and millennials.”
“[The] Australian Esports Association has put the Australian esports fan base at more than 1.5 million people. That’s bigger than swimming and netball.”
Darren Kwan, executive producer and co-founder of the AEL, said: “For our fans, mobile is their first screen. OVO has built its entire business around mobile broadcasting, and understands how to excite and attract fans of the sport and entertainment it supports through OVOPlay.
“We were also very excited at the prospect of being able to make AEL content available data-free.
“Our primary audience values their data allowance more than they do their weekly food budget. If they’re with OVO, our channel can be always-on without them having to spend a kilobyte.”
