Facebook has signed an agreement that secures it exclusive broadcasting rights to both the CS:GO Pro League and ESL One eSports events. The social media site replaces YouTube as the sole stream provider for the upcoming competitions.
Be it original content or live streaming video, Facebook has doubled its efforts in recent years to grow its social media site as a major video platform and its growth is something developers may want to pay attention to.
The ESL cites this effort as one of the reasons it opted to partner with Facebook this time around and notes that the arrangement has the benefit of making live events accessible to a large number of eSports fans with little friction thanks to the company’s Facebook Watch platform.
Those benefits, the ESL says, extend further to recently implemented social video experiences that let viewers form private stream chats with online friends or form virtual viewing parties through Facebook’s built-in messenger chat.
“For years ESL has used Facebook to nurture its global community while broadening the audience for eSports competition to millions of fans worldwide,” said Facebook Games Partnerships global director Leo Olebe in a statement “Having two of ESL’s most adored properties for [Counter-Strike: Global Offensive] and Dota 2 streaming exclusively on Facebook is the next step in our efforts to delight the passionate eSports community on Facebook.”