The second edition of the eISL (Indian Super League), the esports venture, will begin in 2023, as announced by Football Sports Development Limited (FSDL). It will start in collaboration with EA Sports, with Nodwin Gaming as its strategic partner. The new season of the tournament will run from February to May 2023. It will follow the traditional league and playoff format and end in May with the championship game.
The champions of the eISL will get an opportunity to compete in the qualifiers of the EA SPORTS FIFA 23 Global Series (FGS), this year. Being the best in football esports, FGS will provide a lucrative platform for budding Indian esports players to fight against the best players from across the world.
“We are delighted to host FSDL’s second edition of eISL. Football is passionately loved and followed by fans across the world, and organizing the esports variant of the game is super exciting for us. More so, because the winners of this series will get the opportunity of a lifetime to take part in the FIFA Global Series Play-in tournament.”
Mr. Akshat Rathee, MD & Co-Founder, NODWIN Gaming
About the League
This season, all eleven Hero ISL clubs will have a total of 22 esports players because of retention and club qualifiers. With the new retention policy in place, each team will be allowed to keep one returning player from the prior season. The dates for the 2023 January online club qualifiers are January 10th through 15th. Aspiring gamers will compete in eleven online qualifying tournaments, one for each club. Participants must be at least 16 years old to enter, and registrations will be accepted on ESL Play. There will be 62 one-on-one matches this season, all of which will take place over the internet during the league round. The playoffs, final, and all games in between will be contested as a local area network (LAN) tournament, with the winners advancing to the EA SPORTSTM FIFA 23 GLOBAL SERIES (FGS) play-in tournament.
With eISL, we have created a highly interactive experience leveraging the evolving football consumption trends in conjunction with the rapidly growing esports industry.
FSDL spokesperson
The first season of eISL was a hit and it concluded with successful collaborations and partnerships. One being the MoU signed between FSDL and a leading German football league Deutsche Fußball Liga (DFL).. This was another step towards attaining global recognition in the esports domain.
The number of teams and players in esports has been growing quickly, with rapid growth in the esports industry. The number of esports players doubled from 300,000 in 2020 to 600,000 in 2021, according to the FICCI-EY Media and Entertainment Report 2022. This caused the number of esports teams to grow by more than 50%, from 60,000 in 2020 to 100,000 in 2021. Due to the rise in participation, esports revenue will grow by 29% from INR 7.5 billion in 2020 to INR 9.7 billion in 2021, a total of INR 9.7 billion. The second season of the eISL shows that FSDL is still committed to investing in the growing Indian esports industry.
Stay tuned here as we bring to you all the related details to this event.
