Intel Corp. doubled down on its long-standing partnership with the ESL on Monday, striking a deal that will have the PC maker powering the league and its competitions with Intel PCs and processors.
According to the deal, announced Monday on the eve of the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), Intel will power all of ESL’s amateur and pro esports, which includes the PCs players use to compete and equipment to power studio and broadcasting operations.
Intel Core i7 processors will be included in every tournament PCs, while a combination of its Core and Xeon processors will power ESL’s production hardware, making Intel the league’s official technology partner.
The two companies also revealed Monday that Intel Grand Slam for “Counter Strike: Global Offense,” will award a $1 million prize to the first team that wins four “CS:GO” competitions by ESL and DreamHack in a 12-month period.
The expanded deal comes as esports continue to skyrocket in popularity. This year’s Intel Extreme Masters finals racked up 46 million online viewers, making it the most watched esports tournament in ESL history. ESL has also grown increasingly tech-savvy, having recently struck a partnership with Facebook to livestream thousands of hours of exclusive content from tournaments.
To that end, Intel said it is also committed to enhancing the viewer experience through virtual reality by adding more virtual-reality experiences to the esports-viewing experience and launching the world’s first virtual reality global esports competition, set to launch through a partnership with ESL Gaming and Oculus in July.
“We have been one of the very first companies to believe in esports and have supported it for over 15 years. This year, we have decided to take our commitment to the next level,” Intel CMO Steven Fund said in a statement.
