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Esports never cool down, especially in Summer. In the eve of the much-awaited International 2016, here are the 3 facts worth your read.

Shaq Attack

Esports sure feel like a next-gen farwest. In an industry were teams come and go every other day and leagues struggle to maintain some stability, everybody looks up to the big sports where “mercatos” and transfers obey numerous and strict rules. NBA legend Shaquille O’Neal seems to enjoy immensely the loose rules of Esports, as he simply invited famous Overwatch player Seagull and his teamates to leave their current team Luminosity and join NRG, a rival team part-owned by the Shaq. All this with a witty, public tweet. And another incoming drama for Luminosity (check our previous digests).

They talk about my 140 taps

Talking about Twitter: Even tho the little blue bird is struggling compared to other social networks, it remains the premier platform for stars, athletes, live events reactions and thus, for Esports.

Following their first broadcasting deals with the NFL and Wimbledon, Twitter just announced a streaming partnership with Turner’s ELeague. It’s a big step forward for Esport and a promising one for Twitter, which could turn into the best “watch live and live comment” platform out there.

Open Sesame, Alibaba

Alibaba’s forray into Esport has been an obsession of ours since the first announcements back in March. Things just got real this week with a huge $150M investment in the International ESports Federation, plenty of tournaments and projects.

Following Amazon spectacular acquisition of Twitch for $970M a few years ago, Alibaba confirms that good content is the perfect match for giant retailers. And that Esport is serious business in China.

Here’s our weelky Esports Digest with 3 stories: good news for fighting games, bad news for skin gamblers and potential good news for sports. But first of all, let’s enjoy NBA Legend Bill Walton enjoying Esports.

Fighting Esports, round 2

Last week was the Fighting Games fest, with EVO 2016. One of the largest Offline Tournament in the world welcoming thousands of competitors eager to duke it out on famous disciplines such as Street Fighter, Smash Bros, Mortal Kombat, Marvel vs Capcom, Guilty Gear or Tekken.

2016 is also a pivotal year for EVO, as the event moved away from its grassroots approach, hosting the numerous finals in an Arena and having the Street Fighter V Top 8 broadcasted on ESPN 2. Despite some caveits and usual issues, all went quite well, according to several reports.

This first step is a crucial one for the FGC, as the whole “Pro Esports” path taken by the other genres have been hotly discussed by the community, willing to remain a bit underground. The potential is here, the first tests are positive, now is the time for the FGC to jump the shark and embrace its Esports status.

Bad bet

Who would have bet (pun intended) that a whole part of the CS:GO ecosystem would crumble in a matter of days? The weapon skins gambling sites have been all over the place lately. Hugely popular within the community, they sponsored everything, from tournaments to streamers, raising some eyebrows about the classic addiction / fraud issues.

Things went south when several prominent streamers got caught red handed : gambling with money provided by the sponsor, getting favorable bet results or even own equity stakes in the services they promoted / were sponsored by. Doesn’t need a genius to understand that this little industry was shady and out of any control and regulation.

Comes Valve. The CS:GO publisher is infamously know for its unpredictable communication style, ranging from full hands-off to sudden decisions. The CS:GO gambling business learned it the hard way, as Valve sent several Cease and Desist letters and officially condemned the way these sites took advantage of their public API, all this after months without actions.

This will come as a hard lesson in Esports: whether you develop a healthy and legal business or shady one, everything you built and invested on will still remain in the Publisher’s hands.

Goliath likes David

We’re at the Eve of a major shift in Esports, a shift named Sport. For the past few weeks, more and more traditional sport franchises, players and leagues have made their first move into Esport. NBA club owners and players, European Soccer clubs and more recently the Spanish and French Soccer Leagues. And this week, 3 NFL Clubs will hire Madden players.

These moves are both exciting and disappointing. Exciting because the whole “Sports/Esport merger” dream is closer everyday. Disappointing because most of these organizations have huge resources but start very slow. Most of them just hired a FIFA/Madden player to represent the club in gaming tournaments. Make sense, but it still look like some glorified PR stunt. We hope that more ambitious Esport divisions will grow and look at Shalke 04’s ambitious Esports project as the current benchmark.

Our fast-moving Esport industry never ceases to surprise us – for better or worse. Here are the main facts and trends for this week!

Hello Manchester, hello Lisbon

This week, Manchester City and Sporting Lisbon joined the “Sports Clubs going Esports” club, along with Besiktas, Santos, Saski Baskonia, Schalke 04, Valence, West Ham and Wolfsburg. Most of them use the conservative path, adding FIFA players, but somes as Shalke also added a LoL roster.

Can’t wait to see which next clubs are going to enter the fray – and on which games. Rumors has it that Manchester United is in a bidding war with Fnatic over an Overwatch team… The Mercato just reached a whole new level.

SK Drama, s02e04

Want some CS:GO drama? Here we go. We thought the SK / Luminosity poaching saga came to a conclusion, with both club coming to an agreement, with the Brazilian talents going under the German banner.

Everybody was about to get back into business until the biggest of them all suddenly cut ties: the ELeague notified both SK (aka ex-LG) and Team X (aka ex-SK) that these roster changes made them ineligible for the $1.2M league. We later learned that 7 other teams pressured the commissioner to ban SK and Team X. tl;dr: “It’s us or them”.

ELeague is now facing its first crisis, but it may be the last, as the Turner/IMG project could switch to another game next season…

Gambling is ruining CS

While CS:GO is an undisputed top tier Esport, it still suffers from two majors flaws which could cost it endorsement from companies like Turner/IMG. The first one remains realistic violence. It is and it will always be a challenge to broadcast a game about terrorism, bombs, automatic rifles and headshot for a wide audience. While most Esport fans don’t mind and see through the decorum, sponsors and media are still struggling with the game’s thematics.

The second issue is more rampant: since Valve introduced the weapon skin system, players went nuts over over-painted knives and stickers. Some say it saved the game which was struggling traction. Some say it’s killing it right now. Gambling skins has become a huge part of the game.

These past few weeks have seen numerous community leaders such as  Mohamad “m0E” Assad, Trevor Martin or Josh OG caught red-handed with betting frauds. Some were sponsored by the gambling services, other owned equity shares in the services they promoted in their videos and streams.

While the community rages and the analysts worry, Valve hasn’t really taken a stand on the matter. That might hurt slowly but surely – like an incendiary grenade.

The more the merrier

In the meantime, Esport is still attracting more and more people. The ESL One currently taking place in Cologne sold more than 14,000 seats and is poised to break some viewership records.

The International 2016 is receiving money from the community at an impressive rate and may go beyond the unthinkable $20M money prize mark by August.

EVO 2016 will host the largest LAN tournament in history, as more than 5,000 players registered for the Street Fighter V competition alone, while 2600+ will fight for the Smash Bros Wii U champion title. #feelsgoodman