MAFIA GOLD Slots Game by Play'n GO
Connect with us
MAFIA GOLD Slots Game by Play'n GO
MAFIA GOLD Slots Game by Play'n GO

eSports

INDIANAPOLIS TO HOST NBA 2K LEAGUE’S FIFTH ANNIVERSARY SEASON BEGINNING MARCH 23

Published

on

2022 NBA 2K League Draft

 

The NBA 2K League announced that Indianapolis has been selected as the host city for the NBA 2K League’s fifth anniversary season and unveiled the league’s complete competition schedule, which includes a combination of remote and in-person games.  The competition tips off on Wednesday, March 23 with the amateur qualifying event for the Coinbase NBA2KL 3v3 SLAM OPEN, the first of three tournaments in the new Coinbase NBA2KL 3v3 BLACKTOP SERIES, and will culminate with the NBA2KL 3v3 and 5v5 Finals as part of the NBA2KL Championships on Saturday, Aug. 20 and Saturday, Aug. 27, respectively.

In-person NBA 2K League competitions will take place at the new NBA 2K League Studio in Indianapolis at The Pavilion at Pan Am.  The studio’s innovative design will feature two circular competition stages to allow for simultaneous in‑person games that give the broadcast the opportunity to switch between games in real-time to capture the most exciting action.  Information on tickets for in-person games will be announced in the coming weeks.

“After playing nearly all of the 2020 and 2021 seasons remotely, we are thrilled to get back to our live studio experience in the heart of downtown Indianapolis – a city overflowing with passionate basketball fans and known for putting on some of the biggest events in American sports,” said NBA 2K League President Brendan Donohue.  “The NBA 2K League is proud to call Indianapolis our home for the 2022 season.”

“Indiana Sports Corp is excited to partner with the NBA 2K League on its upcoming season in Indy,” said Indiana Sports Corp President Ryan Vaughn. “Our team will provide assistance in several capacities over the course of their 2022 competitions, and we look forward to welcoming this first-ever full tournament season, playoff and championship event to our city.  Esports is among the fastest growing sports in the world, and we are thrilled Indy will be the epicenter of the NBA 2K global community for the next 6 months.  We are, after all, the city where champions are crowned.”

Advertisement
Stake - Best Online Casino & Sports Betting Platform

New this season, as an avenue for the 2 million players who play NBA 2K every day to compete in NBA 2K League competition, amateur teams from around the world will have the opportunity to participate alongside NBA 2K League teams for a share of the 3v3 tournament prize pool.  The Coinbase NBA2KL 3v3 BLACKTOP SERIES, which includes the SLAM OPEN, SWITCH OPEN and STEAL OPEN, will complement the traditional 5v5 BANNER CHAIN Powered by AT&T tournaments (THE TIPOFF, THE TURN and THE TICKET).  The SLAM OPEN and SWITCH OPEN will include the 24 NBA 2K League teams, North American amateur teams that earned a spot through the tournaments’ qualifying events and Community Teams selected by the league and consisting of top players from the 2K community and social media influencers.  The STEAL OPEN will include the 14 NBA 2K League teams that haven’t already qualified for the NBA2KL 3v3 Playoffs, and one amateur international team from each of the European and Asia-Pacific regions that earned a spot through separate international qualifying events.  NBA 2K League teams, amateur teams and Community Teams will qualify for the NBA2KL 3v3 Playoffs based on their performance in the prior competitions throughout the season.

THE BANNER CHAIN Powered by AT&T and the NBA2KL 5v5 Playoffs and Finals will continue to feature only NBA 2K League teams.  All 24 teams will compete in THE TIPOFF and THE TURN.  The five top performing teams from each conference at the end of the regular season will automatically qualify for the NBA2KL 5v5 Playoffs.  The 14 remaining teams will compete in THE TICKET, with the winning teams from the two conferences earning the 11th and 12th spots in the playoffs.

For the first time in league history, following the completion of the SLAM OPEN, THE TIPOFF, the SWITCH OPEN and THE TURN, each NBA 2K League team will play five additional 3v3 and 5v5 matches that will finalize which teams automatically qualify for the NBA2KL Championships and determine seeding in the STEAL OPEN and THE TICKET.

The NBA 2K League will announce additional information related to the 2022 season in the coming months, including registration details for the qualifying events for the three Coinbase NBA2KL 3v3 BLACKTOP SERIES tournaments, further details about Community Teams, and the 2022 season prize pools.

Below please find the 2022 NBA 2K League competition schedule:

Advertisement
Stake - Best Online Casino & Sports Betting Platform
  • March 23 – 26             SLAM OPEN Amateur North America Qualifying Event (Remote)
  • March 30 – April 2     SLAM OPEN Amateur North America Qualifying Event (Remote)
  • April 5 – 8                   THE TIPOFF Group Play (Remote)
  • April 12 – 15               THE TIPOFF Group Play (Remote)
  • April 20 – 23               THE TIPOFF Bracket Play (NBA 2K League Studio, Indianapolis)
  • April 26 – 29               SLAM OPEN Group Play (Remote)
  • April 27 – 30               STEAL OPEN Amateur Europe Qualifying Event (Remote)
  • May 3 – 6                    SLAM OPEN Group Play (Remote)
  • May 4 – 7                    STEAL OPEN Amateur APAC Qualifying Event (Remote)
  • May 11 – 14                SLAM OPEN Bracket Play (NBA 2K League Studio, Indianapolis)
  • May 18 – 21                SWITCH OPEN Amateur North America Qualifying Event (Remote)
  • May 25 – 28                SWITCH OPEN Amateur North America Qualifying Event (Remote)
  • May 24 – 27                THE TURN Group Play (Remote)
  • May 31 – June 3         THE TURN Group Play (Remote)
  • June 8 – 11                  THE TURN Bracket Play (NBA 2K League Studio, Indianapolis)
  • June 14 – 17                SWITCH OPEN Group Play (Remote)
  • June 21 – 24                SWITCH OPEN Group Play (Remote)
  • June 29 – July 2          SWITCH OPEN Bracket Play (NBA 2K League Studio, Indianapolis)
  • July 5 – 8                    5v5 Seed Weeks (Remote)
  • July 12 – 15                5v5 Seed Weeks (Remote)
  • July 19 – 22                3v3 Seed Weeks (Remote)
  • July 26 – July 29         3v3 Seed Weeks (Remote)
  • August 1 – 7                League-Wide Bye Week
  • August 10 – 11            STEAL OPEN (NBA 2K League Studio, Indianapolis)
  • August 12 – 13            THE TICKET (NBA 2K League Studio, Indianapolis)
  • August 17 – 20            NBA2KL 3v3 Playoffs and Finals (NBA 2K League Studio, Indianapolis)
  • August 24 – 27            NBA2KL 5v5 Playoffs and Finals (NBA 2K League Studio, Indianapolis)

eSports

Influencers, Content and eSports: Unleashing the Power of Dynamic Strategies in the eSports Ecosystem

Published

on

Influencers, Content and eSports: Unleashing the Power of Dynamic Strategies in the eSports Ecosystem

 

The sports betting industry is undergoing significant growth worldwide with restrictions loosening and new markets emerging. New opportunities create fierce competition among sportsbooks, and this has led to them devising increasingly expensive and aggressive advertising campaigns.

Public figures and influencers have become a popular go-to for sportsbooks promotions, such as Michael Jordan partnering with DraftKings or Jamie Foxx with BetMGM. Big names are costly, and sportsbooks haven’t realised the ad spend used on these campaigns is going to waste. Without the right precautions in place, up to 22% of ad spend is lost to fraud according to Juniper Research.

The big budgets behind high-profile brand campaigns need to translate into real user engagement. To achieve this, sportsbooks must ensure their digital channels are optimised to capture the surge in interest these campaigns generate. Without proper management, this potential can be lost to inefficiencies like invalid traffic, diluting the impact of their investments.

 

Advertisement
Stake - Best Online Casino & Sports Betting Platform

Ad Budgets Going to Waste

In today’s competitive landscape, sportsbooks need to make every click count. In 2023 alone, The American Gaming Association estimated that over $1.9 billion was spent on advertising campaigns in the US. With such a large amount of spend in play, it’s crucial that sportsbooks see as big a Return on Advertising Spend (ROAS) as possible.

Pay-Per-Click (PPC) campaigns are vital for sportsbook growth but can be disrupted by invalid traffic (IVT). IVT includes both malicious activity, like fraudulent bots, and unintentional actions, such as users repeatedly clicking on ads without intent to convert. These interactions inflate impressions and skew campaign performance data, leading to higher customer acquisition costs (CACs) and inefficient allocation of ad spend. Effectively managing IVT ensures that ad budgets drive genuine engagement and measurable growth.

Investing into influencers and celebrities also forces sportsbooks to bid on brand keywords to prevent their competitors stealing potential users searching for them. Up to 29% of PPC budgets are spent on this bidding according to Wordstream. As competition for brand keywords increases, PPC budgets are depleted without generating any new net revenue.

As campaigns become more expensive than ever, sportsbooks can’t afford to let profits fall to ad fraud. Instead of cutting budgets, sportsbooks should focus on analysing their campaign strategy.

Advertisement
Stake - Best Online Casino & Sports Betting Platform

 

Problematic Navigational Traffic

Navigational traffic is also presenting a significant challenge to sportsbooks alongside ad fraud. Navigational traffic refers to existing customers clicking on branded keywords to log into their accounts. While this seems convenient and harmless enough, this behaviour drastically inflates CACs. Like ad fraud, this can skew the effectiveness of PPC campaigns. By utilising paid search results instead of organic links to navigate to the site, costs are driven up without contributing to new user acquisition.

In addition to the challenges posed by navigational traffic and ad fraud, the competitive landscape for first-time depositors intensifies the need for strategic bidding on Google search. Brands investing heavily in influencers or sponsorships of major sporting events to generate awareness and drive potential users to search for them. However, without securing top placements in paid search results, these prospective customers may be intercepted by competitors before reaching the organic search listings. This creates a critical juncture where the effectiveness of a brand campaign hinges on converting that intent-driven traffic into first-time depositors, ensuring marketing spend achieves its goal of meaningful user acquisition.

First-time depositors are a critical metric for sportsbooks, and this issue directly impacts the cost efficiency of acquiring them. High CACs make marketing budgets less effective, reducing overall ROI.

Advertisement
Stake - Best Online Casino & Sports Betting Platform

 

Shoring Up Your Defences

Before launching costly ad campaigns, sportsbooks should adopt a multi-faceted approach to address ad fraud. IVT typically goes unnoticed, so to prevent this sportsbooks should monitor and analyse their campaign traffic for any suspicious activity. It is possible to identify IVT by looking out for signs such as irregular spikes in traffic from unknown locations or high pageviews. Fraudulent traffic can then by highlighted and removed.

The advancement of technology has made ad fraud more difficult to identify, and legacy fraud tools fail to detect IVT. They don’t analyse traffic at the impression level or consider the context of the business advertising. Sportsbooks can leverage ad-verification platforms to compensate for this. This allows sportsbooks to analyse and report suspicious traffic in real-time. Fraud can then be blocked before it has a chance to harm budgets.

Sportsbooks can also deploy tactics to reduce the impact of navigational traffic on CACs. Methods include encouraging existing customers to use mobile apps or direct bookmarks to log into their accounts instead of paid search campaigns. This decreases their reliance on PPC campaigns for navigation and protects budgets.

Advertisement
Stake - Best Online Casino & Sports Betting Platform

 

Keeping Profits in Sportsbooks’ Hands

Influencer and celebrity campaigns have proven to be a popular and useful tool in reeling new users and profits. However, if sportsbooks don’t have the essential precautions in place, they risk losing these profits to advertising fraud.

To make the most of their advertising efforts, sportsbooks need to prioritise their traffic. Implementing sophisticated tools to analyse traffic and filter out fraud will allow sportsbooks to protect their interests and focus on driving future growth. This way, they can secure their position in an increasingly competitive landscape.

 

Advertisement
Stake - Best Online Casino & Sports Betting Platform

Written by: Chad Kinlay, Chief Marketing Officer, TrafficGuard

A driven, open-minded, creative senior marketer with a strong sense of dedication and commitment. With over 15 years of progressive international experience in marketing and communications management, Kinlay has a credible history of commercial success.

Continue Reading

eSports

Community Gaming Joins Forces with Moonton as Official Esports Partner for Mobile Legends: Bang Bang

Published

on

Community Gaming Joins Forces with Moonton as Official Esports Partner for Mobile Legends: Bang Bang

 

Community Gaming (CG), the leading esports platform for automated tournament payouts and sponsor of the Mobile Legends: Bang Bang’s professional league for the Latin America Region, MPL LATAM, now supports developing esports communities in Latin America in collaboration with Moonton.

This partnership is a significant boost to CG’s existing advantages associated with its grant program, a partner-backed initiative to provide organizers with economic resources based on the performance and growth of their local gaming communities. Tournament organizers can apply to receive platform support, prizes, in-game currency, items, and tournament professional assistance including “Tournament Mode,” a special setting on Mobile Legends: Bang Bang that grants organizers enhanced features, such as unlocking all available skins in the game for players to fully enjoy a complete and unique MLBB pro tournament experience.

Wei Xu, regional esports operation manager at Moonton, said: “We are excited to announce the partnership with Community Gaming. Community Gaming is the most accepted esports platform in our community in Latin America. We hope this partnership brings new experiences to the players.”

As MPL comes to its end this year, CG will also be collaborating with MLBB professional teams for a flash $4000 prize tournament set to enhance the visibility of the company’s services. This event marks a pivotal moment set to highlight CG’s preparedness to impact the professional MLBB scene.

Advertisement
Stake - Best Online Casino & Sports Betting Platform

Community Gaming and Moonton are no strangers to mutual cooperation. In the past both companies have partnered to develop the Dawn of Heroes Series, a set of events in 2021 and 2022 that offered qualifying slots to MLBB’s Signature Competition, Liga LATAM. The companies have also worked together on Peru’s University Tournament INTERU 2023 and currently Community Gaming hosts significant activity of MLBB Tournaments from over 12 countries on a monthly basis.

Continue Reading

eSports

Esports player age verification should be simple

Published

on

Esports player age verification should be simple

 

Despite the continuing professionalisation of esports, misconceptions about player age persist – particularly of underage pros playing in professional esports.

Back in 2021, the PandaScore whitepaper dug into the data around player age in professional esports and found that the average age of a pro player was just under 24 years old. By comparison, the same report noted that the average age for a men’s professional footballer was about 26 years old.

While there is no great gulf in player ages between esports and traditional sports, there’s more apprehension around this topic once there’s a keyboard or controller involved. There are good reasons behind this focus, but the truth is that a simple and straightforward product makes player age verification easy.

The reason behind the focus on player age

Compliance with player age requirements has been a particular concern as legalised sports and esports betting rolls out across the US. These are completely reasonable concerns, partly because of the state-by-state nature of American regulation, but also due to past compliance issues in the likes of ITF tennis.

Advertisement
Stake - Best Online Casino & Sports Betting Platform

Age compliance isn’t a challenge unique to esports. It does have younger players in the same way tennis does, so it’s a space that operators consider a potential risk area based on precedent. While it’s understandable to be vigilant about ensuring age compliance across your whole book, the reality in esports is it’s just like any other sport.

However, with this greater attention, it’s crucial for esports suppliers to have a simple, high-quality solution that is flexible for any jurisdiction – and not just treat it as a spreadsheet-based, tack-on service.

Importance in the US

It’s abundantly clear that if you want to ensure compliance in the US space, player age verification isn’t a nice to have, it’s an integral part of your product. Across each jurisdiction player age verification can vary – something we’ve seen in Europe as well such as Sweden’s rule that a match must have 60% of players over the age of 18 for an operator to offer match bets.

In sports, it’s fairly straightforward to implement but has been an oversight from sports data providers in the past. It’s quite easy to provide, it just requires collecting data from multiple, reputable sources outside of the match itself.

PandaScore has been collecting player age verification data since it was founded in 2017 to ensure compliance no matter the regulation, no matter the jurisdiction.

Advertisement
Stake - Best Online Casino & Sports Betting Platform

Embedding player age verification in your product

Ensuring age compliance was a founding principle for our product suite – we included it as a key datapoint in our API, which is the bedrock of our broader offering. Suppliers should have this embedded in their products, rather than an additional service.

PandaScore believes that offering player age verification as part of an API and integrated into your service means you can be more confident in your compliance not just for individual esports titles, but from match to match.

For us it’s simple: one of PandaScore’s founding principles is to not rely on only one single data source, but leverage multiple quality data sources that we can trust. We have a longstanding and highly developed process that guarantees a level of accuracy for player age verification that’s in line with regulation and gives operators the confidence that they’re compliant. Our practice of using multiple data sources means that double and triple-checking information to ensure player age compliance is in our nature.

With player age verification built into an API, operators can leverage the data to match the compliance needs of any given jurisdiction. This can be done by integrating player age data via the API, it can be included in their feed via our odds product with the flexibility to add exclusions where necessary, or if an operators wants it in a simper form, it can be done via request.

Player age verification might seem like a simple item, but is a compliance matter that’s essential to operating in a proper fashion. Noting the concerns and greater focus on player ages in esports, it’s something that’s important to get right: player age verification should be entrenched in esports products themselves to give operators the flexibility and simplicity that they need.

Advertisement
Stake - Best Online Casino & Sports Betting Platform

 

Author: Oliver Niner, Head of Sales at PandaScore.

Continue Reading

Trending

GamingAmericas.com (part of HIPTHER) is your one-stop portal for the latest news, insights, and analyses in the gaming industry across the Americas. From legislative updates and market trends to interviews with industry leaders, we provide a comprehensive look at the dynamic landscape of both online and land-based gaming. Whether you're a stakeholder looking to stay ahead of the curve or a gaming enthusiast eager for reliable updates, GamingAmericas.com has got you covered. Follow us on social media and subscribe to our newsletter for real-time updates and exclusive content. Make informed decisions and stay ahead in the game with GamingAmericas.com.

Disclaimer: All the information provided is for educational and entertainment purposes only. Always check your local laws before participating in any gaming activities.

Copyright © 2018 – 2024, HIPTHER. All Rights Reserved.