Esports organisation, Blast Premier, has announced a ‘record number’ of media rights deals that sees the 2022 season broadcast in over 130 territories, in 25 languages.
Within the reported 35 partnerships, the footage will cover all of the major global esports regions including North America, LatAm, Asia, the Nordics and CIS, to name a few.
The expanded broadcast portfolio involves renewals with existing partners as well as signing an array of new media rights deals with multiple leading media outlets which includes: public broadcaster TV2 (Denmark), TV network Astro (Asia), OTT service StarTimes (Africa), streamer Gaules (Brazil) and online service WePlay (Russia).
Alexander Lewin, VP of Distribution and Programming at Blast, commented: “We are delighted to start the 2022 season with the widest distribution in our history. Blast Premier has been on a path of rapid growth since inception two years ago and is now available in over 25 languages worldwide.”
In increasing the value of its global media rights footprint in line with the company’s expansion plans, Lewin added: “We are thrilled to extend our relationship with the vast majority of our existing licensees as well as welcome so many new partners to the Blast family.”
In 2021, the tournament reported 59.37 million hours of overall watch-time off the back of a 30% increase in viewership on the previous year. With a combined prize pool of $2,475,000, up to 32 of the world’s best teams take part in the seven Blast Premier events across the year.
In April last year, it was also reported that the esports firm secured eight media rights agreements for the 2021 season, significantly expanding its global audience.
These partnerships also enabled the Counter Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) tournament to enter a range of new markets, including the Caribbean, Canada, Estonia, Iceland, India, Latvia, Lithuania, Kosovo, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
