The Swedish Professional Football Leagues (SEF) has announced a long-term partnership with DreamHack Sports Games, MTG’s sports simulation business unit, to strengthen the football association’s FIFA esports competition, eAllsvenskan.
The partnership will see DreamHack Sports Games assist with the development of the eAllsvenskan, which is part of the EA SPORTS FIFA Global Series.
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SEF represents the 32 football clubs in Sweden’s top two football divisions — 17 of which have active teams in the virtual league, eAllsvenskan.
Mats Enquist, Secretary-General at SEF, commented: “FIFA gaming in Sweden has continued to grow with a bigger footprint on the overall football scene. We want to make eAllsvenskan a given ingredient, with extra flavor, to our clubs’ operations and organisations.
“It is with great confidence that we look forward to an extended, long-term collaboration with DreamHack Sports Games so that, together, we will be able to take new steps forward when it comes to the development of eAllsvenskan.”
DreamHack Sports Games currently operates eFootball leagues in Denmark with eSuperliga; the Netherlands with eDivisie; alongwith golf’s first esports initiative, the European eTour. With the addition of Sweden’s eAllsvenskan, the organisation strengthens its presence in the Nordic market.
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DreamHack Sports Games was created to bridge the gap between traditional sports and its video game counterparts. Most recently, DreamHack partnered with the NHL to produce the NHL Gaming World Championship, which is tentatively scheduled for March 2021. The event is said to expand on previous iterations of the competition and will aim to ‘align’ more closely to the real-world action.
Roger Lodewick, the CEO of DreamHack Sports Games, added: “As esports continues to grow and thrive, the transition from traditional sports IPs into esports has become vital to reaching the next generation of sports enthusiasts. We couldn’t be happier to help engage the Allsvenskan fans and welcome them to the esports journey. We greatly value this collaboration with SEF and look forward to sharing this next adventure with our Nordic community.”
Esports Insider says: For those of us who have covered esports since before it had a name, it’s amazing to see how much validation the industry has earned with traditional sports organisations. It wasn’t that long ago that the idea of earning money through video game competitions was literally laughed at, and now partnerships are being made to build a bridge between traditional and virtual sports.