At the beginning of June 2019 yesterday ESPN announced the launch of EXP, a new esports competition series which is a mix between professional esports, amateurs and pro-am (mixed). The first EXP has been held in the form of the ESPN Collegiate Esports Championship, but in the future there will be two more EXP events this year. The game that is carried by EXP is Apex Legends, and ESPN collaborates directly with EA for its implementation.
“The approach to esports represents ESPN’s focus to serve sports fans and a growing audience,” said Justin Connoly, Disney’s Executive Vice President & ESPN Affiliate Salas and Marketing, at the official ESPN website at that time. “We continue to be committed to serving gaming enthusiasts across all platforms and types of content, and Apex Legends is the perfect title to show EXP’s vision to present world-class esports events with storytelling and multiplatform distribution.”
Recently ESPN announced that ASUS Republic of Gamers (ROG) will be the official hardware sponsor for ESPN EXP tournaments. Reporting from The Esports Observer, some of the devices that will be provided include the ROG Strix GL12CX gaming desktop (equipped with NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 GPU), ROG Swift PG248Q gaming monitor, and the Strix SCAR III gaming laptop for the casters. Actually ESPN Collegiate Esports Championship doesn’t have an EXP brand when it was held last May, but ESPN considers it part of EXP too. ASUS ROG also became a hardware provider at the event.
On July 11, ESPN also held the second EXP tournament, Pro-Am EXP in Los Angeles. The event which is held in conjunction with ESPYS (Excellence in Sports Performance Yearly Awards) 2019 is quite different from other tournaments because it is a charity event, with invited participants consisting of professional gamers, sports athletes, and celebrities. The tournament was won by Dizzy’s team from NRG Esports, and the collected funds were donated to the V Foundation’s cancer research foundation.
“Competitive gaming is a passion at ROG,” said Vivian Lien, Global Head of Marketing for the Gaming Systems Business Group, on the ASUS official website. “We were established to innovate and create elite equipment for serious gamers. Our hardware is designed for competition at the top level, and there is no better place to test it than the current and future esports championship tournaments. “ASUS ROG has indeed participated in many esports events. Besides ESPN EXP, they also sponsor other popular events such as PAX, Dreamhack, and ESL One.
The next EXP tournament will be held on August 2 – 3, the EXP Invitational – Apex Legends at the Minneapolis X Games. The tournament presents 20 of the world’s top Apex Legends teams to fight for prizes worth US $ 150,000. Just like other EXP tournaments, EXP Invitational – Apex Legends will be broadcast live through various digital streaming platforms, including the ESPN application, will also have a delay broadcast in the form of highlights on ESPN and ABC television stations.
