Modern Times Group MTG AB’s (MTG) portfolio company DreamHack has entered a contract with the Dutch football League Eredivisie on cooperation around the Dutch EA SPORTS FIFA 20 League, eDivisie. The goal is to bring Dutch esports to the next level and to create the world’s leading competitive EA SPORT FIFA 20 league, defined by a full-scale league with physical events attended by fans, best in class production quality and a considerable prize pool of EUR 100 000.
The eDivisie is the Official League qualifying tournament for the EA SPORTS FIFA Global Series, a league for the Eredivisie clubs, parallel to the Dutch football league. In the eDivisie, EA SPORTS FIFA 20 players representing the clubs will battle for the virtual championship in FIFA Ultimate Team, playing on both PlayStation and Xbox.
“Eredivisie and the Dutch football clubs have been engaged in esports for some time and have built a strong foundation with their FIFA league, eDivisie. Several of the world’s top FIFA players are Dutch and millions of Dutch gamers play FIFA on a regular basis, so we believe that The Netherlands has a huge potential of being an absolute frontrunner country in competitive FIFA” says Peter Nørrelund, Co-Ceo of DreamHack and MTG EVP Head of Product Development and Incubation.
The Netherlands is one of the strongest markets in Europe for Electronic Arts (EA) FIFA football games series with more than 2 million Dutch people playing a FIFA title for more than 10 hours monthly, and it is the biggest national FIFA league in the world based on its social media following of 174 000 followers on Instagram, Youtube, Twitter and Facebook.
Details will be presented at a later stage, but it stands clear already that eDivisie will be live produced as a full-scale league, with fans attending the games, and a prize pool of at least EUR 100 000 in total. The new competition starts at the end of October 2019.