Multiyear Partnership Begins with 2020 NBA 2K League Playoffs and Finals Delivered by DoorDash
2020 NBA 2K League Finals Delivered by DoorDash to Feature Best-of-Five-Series Between Warriors Gaming Squad vs. Wizards District Gaming, Saturday, Aug. 29 at 7 p.m. IST on Loco
National, August 27th, 2020: Loco, India’s leading live game streaming and esports platform, and the NBA 2K League today announced a multiyear partnership that will see Loco stream NBA 2K League games in India. The NBA 2K League, a joint venture between the NBA and Take-Two Interactive, is a professional esports league featuring the best NBA 2K players in the world and the first official esports league operated by a U.S. professional sports league.
Fans in India will be able to enjoy the highest-tier of NBA 2K League action starting with the 2020 NBA 2K League Playoffs and Finals delivered by DoorDash and continuing in the 2021 NBA 2K League season when Loco will stream more than 200 NBA 2K League games.
The 2020 NBA 2K League Finals delivered by DoorDash – a best-of-five series between Warriors Gaming Squad (the NBA 2K League affiliate of the Golden State Warriors) and Wizards District Gaming (the NBA 2K League affiliate of the Washington Wizards) – will stream in India on Loco this Saturday, Aug. 29 at 7 p.m. IST. The 2020 NBA 2K League season has a total prize pool of $1.4 million, with the NBA 2K League champions receiving $420,000 from that pool. For more information on the 2020 NBA 2K League Playoffs and Finals delivered by DoorDash, click here.
NBA 2K League Managing Director Brendan Donohue said, “Our goal is for the NBA 2K League to be a truly global league, with fans, franchises and players from all over the world. As we continue to grow our distribution domestically and internationally, we’re thrilled to partner with an industry-leader like Loco who will help us further reach India’s passionate and growing esports community. Fans in India can look forward to an incredible Finals matchup when Warriors Gaming Squad takes on Wizards District Gaming this weekend and to more than 200 NBA 2K League games featuring all of our teams next season.”
Commenting on the association, Anirudh Pandita and Ashwin Suresh, Founders, Pocket Aces said, “The NBA has shown a great vision by embracing esports and providing a pioneering roadmap for other professional leagues. The gaming culture in our country is getting richer by the day and this partnership will enrich it even further. We look forward to working with the entire Indian esports ecosystem to build a strong community for the 2K game and the NBA 2K League here. The esports revolution in India is just beginning and we are excited to build this new category of entertainment alongside an organization that has embraced it from the beginning.”
Loco serves the fast-growing Indian gaming ecosystem consisting of over 300 million gamers, and the partnership with the NBA 2K League underlines the commitment of the platform to bring cutting edge esports entertainment to the country. The platform will also ensure that regional audiences experience this unique property by providing multiple regional languages feeds for the NBA 2K League next season. Loco already houses some of India’s top competitive gamers such as Jonathan, Ghatak, IND Snax, and Xyaa, who, along with top teams like Fnatic, IND, 8bit, and Team Tamilas, provide viewers with the very best of gaming entertainment.
The partnership with the NBA 2K League is the start of a series of properties on Loco that will enable Indian esports enthusiasts to enjoy quality international esports games. The partnership is also a testament to Loco’s growing international recognition, which comes on the back of successful partnerships with leading esports and allied brands. More recently, Loco, in association with the POCO M2 Pro, hosted its first-ever original PUBG tournament, which garnered over 3 million views. The app also partnered with Redbull to create and broadcast esports content across various game categories. Similarly, Fnatic, a leading professional esports organization headquartered in London, also entered into a long-term alliance with Loco to co-create unique esports content.
About Pocket Aces:
With a mission to solve boredom for the 400+ million Indians online, Pocket Aces is India’s leading digital entertainment company focused on mobile video. The company operates five socially distributed content brands: FilterCopy (short videos), Dice Media (multi-episode web series), Gobble (food, travel, home videos), Jambo (young-adult animation) and Nutshell (infotainment videos), as well as a direct-to-consumer platform: Loco (e-sports streaming platform).
The company’s socially distributed video network has amassed >12 billion video views with a current run rate of over 500 Million monthly views. Following the success of Dice Media’s marquee web series Little Things on YouTube and Facebook (garnering more than 200 million minutes watched), Season 2 and 3 were picked up as Netflix Originals and aired in more than 193 countries, in 5 different languages. Loco, is one of the fastest-growing apps in the country today with more than 23 million registered users with active users spending over 30 minutes daily on the app. The company has grown its team strength to 210 with offices in Mumbai, Bengaluru, and Delhi.
Pocket Aces has worked extensively with large advertisers including PepsiCo, Flipkart, Amazon, Samsung, One Plus, Google, Kingfisher, Kotak Mahindra Bank, etc. The company’s content has also been syndicated to various OTT platforms such as Ola Play and Reliance Jio, airlines such as Emirates and Cathay Pacific, cable partners such as Tata Sky, and international platforms such as China’s Youku Tudou and Bytedance.
Major investors in Pocket Aces include Sequoia Capital, North Base Media, 3one4 Capital, and the co-founders of India’s largest IT services firm, Infosys. In July 2019, the company announced a ₹100 crore investment from Sequoia India, DSP Group and 3one4 Capital, besides other prominent investors.
About the NBA 2K League
The NBA 2K League, a professional esports league co-founded by the NBA and Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. (NASDAQ:TTWO), launched in 2018 and features the best NBA 2K players in the world. Each of the league’s 23 teams features six players who compete for as unique characters in 5-on-5 play against the other teams in a mix of regular-season games, tournaments and playoffs. NBA 2K League partners include Anheuser-Busch, AT&T, Champion Athleticwear, Dash Radio, DoorDash, eGG Network, ESPN, Facebook, GameStop, HyperX, Jostens, Panera Bread, Raynor Gaming, SAP, SCUF Gaming, Snickers, Stance, Tissot, Twitch and YouTube. For more information about the NBA 2K League, visit NBA2KLeague.com.
Media Contacts:
Ankita Tulshyan, Pocket Aces PR Manager, +91-9820510968, ankita.tulshyan@pocketaces.in
Stephanie Paul, +91-8097121726, stephanie.paul@adfactorspr.com
Gautam Sheth, NBA India, +91 98692 33393, gsheth@nba.com
