e-Sports Local group signs deal with leading tournament in China

Two virtual gaming associations in Macau and Portugal have signed strategic partnership agreements with the World Cyber Arena (WCA), one of the biggest electronic sports (eSports) competitions in the world. The deals grant them exclusive rights to organize qualifiers for the tournament in the two territories.

The agreement was signed in Yinchuan, China earlier this month during the WCA Global eSports Summit, which was attended by more than 30 eSports alliances and associations from 20 countries and regions across the world.

Portugal’s Grow uP Gaming and Macau’s Grow uP eSports will now serve as their territories’ ambassador associations through their liaisons with the WCA.

They will be responsible for organizing the annual WCA Qualifiers in Macau and Portugal and selecting the strongest eSports teams for their respective regions. These teams  will then compete at the competition’s Grand Finals in China during November and December each year.

Frederico Santos Rosário, the chairman of Grow uP eSports, said that it will be comparatively easier for Macau residents to reach the finals of the competition than in other regions around the world due to the city’s small population.

“Our advantage is that Macau is small and we don’t have to compete with other provinces and cities inside China before reaching the finals,” he told the Times yesterday. “Even our brothers [Grow uP Gaming] in Portugal might have to compete at the Portugal and then European Qualifiers before the finals.”

This year’s WCA tournament concluded yesterday in Yinchuan. Winning teams and individual players from around the world competed for a combined prize pool worth millions of RMB in electronic games such as DOTA 2, Starcraft II, Warcraft III, Hearthstone, CS:GO and League of Legends.

Founded last year, Grow uP eSports is a non-profit Macau association whose objective is to create and develop the eSports industry. It operates as an expansion to Grow uP Gaming, which was established over a decade ago and is today one of the largest and oldest virtual gaming groups in Europe. DB