By Tim Kelleher, eSports Consultant

With the world’s current health crisis, people are spending more time inside than ever. Aside from binging “The Office” for the 10th time through, there are fewer entertainment options with professional sports virtually grounding to a halt. However, as the saying goes, “When one door closes, another opens.” Boston Sports Partners (BSP) saw this opportunity and chose to step through that door and start something new.

Not knowing how long COVID-19 will last or its effects on the planet, BSP looked to jump into esports as quickly as possible with a few goals in mind: 1) give people a competitive event to watch and be involved in, 2) help grow the esports and CS:GO community, and 3) BSP wanted to “dip a toe in the water” with the ultimate objective of having a meaningful position and long-term involvement in esports.

There were several things we knew already. We wanted to do CS, a well-established game and a former esport of the year. We did not want to make it for professional gamers, not because we dislike the pros but in order for the community to grow, all Tier-1, 2, and 3 teams need opportunities to grow and compete. We decided on a $2,000 winner-take-all tournament, the title being “Mythic Cup 6 Presented by Boston Sports Partners”.

Going into the tournament, we expected solid yet modest numbers in terms of viewership.  We were hoping for more than 600+ average viewers and 30,000+ total viewers. Previous Mythic Cups have averaged more than 1,000+ viewers with total viewers being anywhere from 60,000-100,000+. However, we knew there were two factors that would suppress our numbers somewhat. First, ESL was streaming their Online Qualifiers for ESL One: Road to Rio (their Major in Rio expected to be in November) at the same time as MC6 for EU, NA, Asia, and Oceania. All these qualifiers were between $10,000 and $115,000. This is truly a David vs Goliath situation, but in this case, they are fighting for the same thing, viewers. We were confident that there would still be a significant interest. The second challenge we faced was that the tournament was being held on Mother’s Day, but we thought that viewers would be free later in the day. We teamed up with Erik “Fl0m” Flom, owner of Mythic, Austin “Boggsnator” Bogdanovich, Donnie “Voo” Par, and JRT to support us in streaming the matches, as needed. All of these partners are well established in the CS community. Erik, for example, was able to stream three games and averaged an estimated 2,600 viewers. He eventually “raided” (essentially moving his stream and viewers to another channel) the main stream on Mythic League’s channel. All other channels averaged 100+ during the preliminary matches.

The finals of the tournament were Under 21 vs. Swedish Canadians. It was a matchup that never should have happened. This is not because one team lacked the skill but because Under 21 had lost in their first matchup versus Polar Ace. However, Polar Ace had technical issues and were therefore unable to play in the next round, forfeiting the previously won match and bringing Under 21 back from the dead to head into the Finals after beating Recon 5. Map 1 was Mirage and looked to be SC’s from the beginning going up 11-4 to close out the second half 5-3 and taking Mirage. Up 1 to 0, they went on to Nuke, again looking like they were going to win quickly being up 10-5 at the half. However, U21 decided to put some doubt in our minds by winning six straight and a couple more to make it competitive and exciting at 13-15 in favor of SC. However, SC brought it back together to take the map, matchup, the Cup, and $2,000.

Additionally, we would like thank Mythic League and HyperX for their support. Mythic League provided us with a server, caster (JRTTV), producer (Allo), and a solid structure to host the tournament, while HyperX provided us with 12 peripherals (4x Cloud Stinger Core Wireless Headsets, 4x Alloy Origins Core Keyboards, 4x Pulsefire FPS Pro Mice) which were used for giveaways and were highly sought after by viewers. Out of the 12 giveaways, six of them had more than 100 people enter to win. In total, we saw upwards of 38,000+ unique views, 50,000+ total views, and in the finals, we peaked at 1,600 viewers while averaging 800+, and we still had 720 viewers after the final giveaway was done (roughly 20 minutes after the end of the final map).

BSP was proud to partner with Mythic on this, our first formal dive into the esports landscape.  I’m excited to be at the helm of our gaming division as we continue to make our mark in the space and help fill our mission to Build Brands, Build Relationships, and Build Business for individuals and organizations who recognize the power of esports.

 

 

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