ESL strikes large-scale eSports streaming deal with Facebook

Modern Times Group-owned eSports outfit ESL has teamed up with Facebook to stream over 5,500 hours of live content via the social media platform.

From June, ESL will stream ESL One and Intel Extreme Masters events live on Facebook in six different languages.

ESL will also stream content from ESEA’s Rank S competitions, described by the company as an elite ladder for the Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) community. ESL will also stream an exclusive weekly 30-minute CS:GO programme that showcases top players, upcoming talent and competition highlights.

ESL said that its content on Facebook generated over two billion impressions and reached over 200 million users globally last year.

The latest deal follows an agreement in March between ESL and sister company DreamHack, and Twitter, to live-stream over 1,500 hours of content on that platform.

ESL Turtle Entertainment UK managing director James Dean this week told the Connected TV World Summit in London that the eSports outfit was planning to build on early experiments to reach out to new platforms and develop much more linear TV coverage of competitions.