IGN Pro League Partners With China's Netease And MarsTV To Bring eSports Events To The Chinese Market

SAN FRANCISCO, May 21, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- The IGN Pro League (IPL), the competitive video game league presented by IGN Entertainment, today announced a partnership with Netease, one of the leading China-based Internet technology companies, and MarsTV, China's leading video media company, to jointly promote the development of IPL and eSports in China.

MarsTV will be the exclusive live broadcaster for the Chinese Regional Qualifiers, while Netease's S.163.com site, the central destination for StarCraft II-related news in China, will be responsible for China's press coverage of the IGN Pro League's next event, IPL 5. 

In 2012, IPL will invite one Chinese StarCraft II player and one Chinese League of Legends team to the United States to compete at an upcoming IPL event. Through the Chinese Regional Qualifiers, the top StarCraft II player and League of Legends team will earn a ticket to go to IPL 5. So far, XiGua, Infi, LoveCD, Loner and many other well-known Chinese players have already signed up, with many more expected to debut.

David Ting, founder of the IGN Pro League and head of eSports for IGN Entertainment, said, "We look forward to seeing Chinese StarCraft II players and League of Legends teams demonstrate their supreme dominance at IPL 5."

Historically, China has been a powerhouse for eSports events and has achieved impressive results for events featuring both StarCraft II and Warcraft III. Today, StarCraft II has become one of the world's most popular eSports titles. Every year, countless StarCraft II tournaments are held worldwide.  China's Loner placed second at BlizzCon 2010, while XiGua was the runner-up at the popular WCG2011 World Championships.

During IPL 4, the last event held by the IGN Pro League, S.163.com and MarsTV were the first to introduce IPL into China, with exclusive coverage and live broadcasts of IPL 4, which drew in the largest-ever online viewership for an eSports event held outside of Korea.  Both S.163.com and MarsTV will send reporters to IPL5 to jointly cover IPL for the China eSports community. People worldwide can watch the live English broadcast of the event through IPL at www.ign.com/ipl.  

The IGN Pro League launched in April 2011 and has already grown to become one of the largest eSports organizations in North America.  Owned and operated by Netease, S.163.com provides news coverage for all StarCraft II tournaments for the Chinese speaking region. MarsTV is the exclusive live Chinese broadcaster of GSL for mainland China.

About IGN Entertainment

IGN Entertainment is the leading Internet media and services provider focused on the video game and entertainment enthusiast markets. Collectively, IGN's properties reach more than 52 million unique users worldwide, according to Internet audience measurement firm comScore.  IGN's network of video game-related properties (IGN.com, 1UP.com, GameSpy, FilePlanet, TeamXbox and others) is the Web's #1 video game information destination.  IGN also owns the world's largest men's lifestyle website, AskMen.com, and men's entertainment site UGO.com. It also provides technology for online game play in video games. IGN is headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area, with offices across North America, Europe and Australia.

SOURCE IGN Entertainment