Skyesports and Rooter, two of the well-known names from Indian gaming industry, have joined hands as Rooter has secured the media rights for all the upcoming big events organized by Skyesports. This is one of the biggest media rights deal in esports history.
Skyesports is the biggest esports tournament organizer in South Asia for conducting their own IP events. Their popularity has soared new heights in the past few years and continues to rise till date. Skyesports kickstarted their season with a successful first event of the year called Skyesports Grand Slam 2022.
Rooter is commonly labeled as the ‘Twitch of India,’ has a huge viewer base in India with more than 35 million downloads across Google Play and Apple App store. This deal helps both parties to amass new audience by leveraging the big numbers attracted by Skyesports’ flagship events.
Skyesports is known to break their own records as they gathered more than 200 million viewers across all its tournaments and achieved a peak concurrent viewership record of 221,000 during the Skyesports Championship 3.0 BGMI Finals.
This deal will guide Skyesports and Rooter towards their common goal of making esports and gaming more accessible. The tournaments will be broadcasted in a variety of languages such as Hindi, English, Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam, Bengali, and Telugu. Viewers that will tune in to watch the tournaments via Rooter will also earn some exclusive rewards in the process.
Talking about this strategical partnership, Dipesh Agarwal, Co-Founder and COO, Rooter said the following:
“Skyesports is renowned for hosting some of the major esports tournaments in the
– Dipesh Agarwal, Co-Founder and COO, Rooter.
country. Teaming up with a platform redefining Indian esports, this comes as a landmark deal for both entities. Rooter is the fastest growing gaming platform in India and we will help Skyesports reach millions of fans who will get the best esports content exclusively on Rooter. We also look forward to working with Shiva and the rest of the team to provide multiple engagement opportunities for fans with esports teams on Rooter’s platform.”
The founder and CEO of Skyesports, Shiva Nandy, had following to say about this partnership:
“Our goal has always been to make Skyesports’ IPs, which have been homegrown in India, more accessible. I am sure that our esports content will feel right at home on Rooter’s platform. Additionally, by distributing the media rights, we are empowering Rooter to implement strategies to further engage our already large audience. We look forward to closely working with them throughout the year to enhance the watching experience for the viewers while building esports from the grassroots level and launching more premium IPs.”
– Shiva Nandy, Founder and CEO, Skyesports.
Rajan Navani, Founder and CEO, JetSynthesys said the following about this collaboration:
“Skyesports, we envisioned the creation of a closely-knit esports ecosystem at the grassroots level. It’s a pleasure to have Rooter join us as a partner and we look forward to working together with them to be able to accelerate our growth in terms of viewership in India.”
– Rajan Navani, Founder and CEO, JetSynthesys
Skyesports unveiled their roadmap for 2022 which includes their flagship IPs and has a combined prize pool of $530,000 (Rs. 4 crores). The Skyesports Grand Slam, Skyesports Pro League, Skyesports League, Skyesports Championship, and the Skyesports Mobile Open will be returning this year on a bigger scale.
Players will compete in games like Battlegrounds Mobile India (BGMI), League of Legends, Free Fire, Valorant, Hearthstone, FIFA, Real Cricket, Supercell titles, and more.
Skyesports also has plans to host Skyesports League and the Skyesports Championship 4.0 in the LAN environment with offline tournaments returning after two years in India.
Rooter was formed in 2016 by Piyush Kumar and Dipesh Agarwal and has grown to become the biggest streaming platform in India. They have secured $25 million in its series A funding round led by Lightbox, March Gaming, and Duane Park Ventures.
Rooter has signed multiple deals in the past few months and some notable ones are bringing cricket star Yuzvendra Chahal onboard to become their exclusive streamer, becoming official broadcast partner for OR esports and signing an exclusive streaming deal with the competitive BGMI lineup of Team Soul.