Over 5000 FreeFire gaming squads from different states of India are participating in the tournament
For the first time in the esports history of the nation, Bengaluru-headquartered gaming start-up EWar Games has announced the launch of an IPL-like mega-franchise gaming tournament for the Garena Free Fire gamers’ community in India; the tournament titled ‘Free Fire Premiere League’ (FPL) is witnessing participation from several thousands of FreeFire gamers from 6 different states of India, i.e. Karnataka, Delhi, Rajasthan, West Bengal, Telangana and Maharashtra.
The ongoing tournament—being held over a 15-day period (5th March to 20th March 2021)—features a whopping prize pool of ₹1.5 lakh. The winner, 1st runners-up and 2nd runners up of FPL will be rewarded with cash prizes of ₹ 1 lakh, 30,000 and 10,000 respectively, whereas the ‘Best Underdog Team’ of the Tournament will also, win prize money of ₹ 10,000.
In Season 1 of FPL, around 9 games (matches) will be played on a daily basis. The League will be progressing through a series of consecutive stages — 45 qualifiers’ matches with 540 teams, 18 quarter-final matches with 90 teams, and 16 semi-final matches with 24 teams. Among some of the notable ‘invited’ teams who have confirmed participation in the current season of FPL are: Total Gaming, TSG, Lokesh Gamer, Nonstop Gaming, Nayeem Aalam, Villian Gaming, Techno Banda, Enigma Gaming and Jigs Official.
Before the Semi-Finals and Final phase of the tournament, 6 franchise/state owners will participate in a virtual-wallet-based auction (somewhat similar to the real-money based auction that happens before IPL) to bid for the 12 top ‘invited teams’ of the tournament, and each owner will be buying/owning 2 teams. Following the bidding process, these teams will be allotted to their respective state and will enter the tournament to play against the qualified ‘underdog teams’ from the preceding stages. Among the team owners are Mr. Nimish Raut, Fnatic India Head & Delhi owner and Mr. Rushindra Sinha, Founder of Global Esports & Maharashtra owner.
Garena Free Fire is one of the most-played multiplayer battle Royale’ games in India and the world. Following the PUBG ban in India last year, the game has witnessed a phenomenal rise in popularity amongst Indian gamers and has been consistently blowing up the charts in terms of download numbers, revenue, user base, etc. The game is also one of the most popular games on EWar’s mobile gaming app.
EWar is on a mission to take the esports scene in India to bigger and better levels in order to match the global esports frenzy, and to that end, the start-up has been organizing a lot of e-sports tournament franchises in the recent past to help esports players/gamers showcase their gaming talents and eventually gain high levels of recognition and success just like the Cricket players of our country.
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