Rooter bags media rights deal for South Asia’s biggest esports tournament organizer, Skyesports

Rooter, the largest Indian game streaming platform, announced today that it had acquired the media rights for all of Skyesports’ IPs, in one of the largest media rights deals in esports, for the next one year. Skyesports is the biggest esports tournament organizer in South Asia that conducts competitions under its self-owned IPs.

Moving forward, all of Skyesports’ original competitions will be broadcasted exclusively on Rooter. Keeping in line with Skyesports’ and Rooter’s aim of making esports and game streaming as accessible as possible, the tournaments will be streamed in several languages
which include Hindi, English, Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam, Bengali, and Telugu. Viewers who tune into Skyesports’ competitions on Rooter will also be given some exclusive rewards.

Rooter, which is commonly labeled as the ‘Twitch of India,’ already has a substantial user base in the country with more than 35 million downloads on the Google Play Store and Apple’s App Store. This deal will enable the platform to further tap into the esports market by
leveraging Skyespots’ large viewer base. Last year, Skyesports generated more than 200 million viewers across all its tournaments and achieved a peak concurrent viewership record of 221,000 during the Skyesports Championship 3.0 BGMI Finals.

Rooter will also be producing additional content based on Skyesports’ IPs throughout the year to offer more entertainment to fans Commenting on this strategic agreement, Dipesh Agarwal, Co-Founder and COO, Rooter, said, “Skyesports is renowned for hosting some of the major esports tournaments in the country. Teaming up with a platform redefining Indian esports, this comes as a landmark deal for both entities. Rooter is the fastest growing gaming platform in India and we will help Skyesports reach millions of fans who will get the best esports content exclusively on Rooter. We also look forward to working with Shiva and the rest of the team to provide multiple engagement opportunities for fans with esports teams on Rooter’s platform.”

Speaking on the deal, Shiva Nandy, Founder and CEO, Skyesports said: “Our goal has always been to make Skyesports’ IPs, which have been homegrown in India, more accessible. I am sure that our esports content will feel right at home on Rooter’s platform. Additionally, by distributing the media rights, we are empowering Rooter to implement strategies to further engage our already large audience. We look forward to closely working with them throughout the year to enhance the watching experience for the viewers while building esports from the grassroots level and launching more premium IPs.”

Rajan Navani, Founder and CEO, JetSynthesys said, “With Skyesports, we envisioned the creation of a closely-knit esports ecosystem at the grassroots level. It’s a pleasure to have Rooter join us as a partner and we look forward to working together with them to be able to accelerate our growth in terms of viewership in India.”

Earlier this month, Skyesports unveiled its roadmap for 2022 with more than $530,000 (Rs. 4 crores) in prize money up for grabs across several competitions. The Skyesports Grand Slam, Skyesports Pro League, Skyesports League, Skyesports Championship, and the Skyesports Mobile Open are all set to return this year with a bigger format. There will be several games in each IP which includes Battlegrounds Mobile India (BGMI), League of Legends, Free Fire, Valorant, Hearthstone, FIFA, Real Cricket, Supercell titles, and more.

Besides this, the company also announced that the Skyesports League and the Skyesports Championship 4.0 will be held as LAN events, marking a return to offline events after more than two years.

Founded in 2016 by Piyush Kumar and Dipesh Agarwal, Rooter has quickly grown to become the largest game streaming platform in India. In January 2022, the company announced that it had raised $25 million in its series A funding round led by Lightbox, March
Gaming, and Duane Park Ventures. In December 2021, the streaming platform roped in renowned Indian cricketer Yuzvendra Chahal who streams exclusively on the platform. Last week, the company also teamed up with the dominant BGMI team, OR Esports, as its official
broadcast partner. It also signed an exclusive streaming deal with the competitive BGMI lineup of the fan-favorite Team Soul.