Skyesports has become a household name for anybody well versed with the Indian esports industry and affiliated communities. They have organized a number of tournaments till date and owing to their diversified portfolio, Skyesports has passed several landmarks in the past year.
Skyesports is a Chennai-based esports and gaming company from India specialized in organizing impressive esports events. Skyesports successfully concluded their 2021 chapter with over 280,000 players participating in multiple events having ten different esports titles.
The Skyesports League was an innovative and first ever city-based franchise league for esports in India. It had its own unique bidding system where famous personas from the community bidded to form their own team. This tournament ran over the entire summer and had more than ₹16 lakhs of prize pool.
Skyesports League was a major factor in rising the popularity of Valorant in India. The numbers testify to this fact as the total views crossed 8 million and combined watching hours were more than 770,000.
Skyesports ventured into a new market by launching its own talent management agency called Sky Route. The Skyesports League was the first city-based franchise league for esports in India and connected influencers with brands.
Gnana Shekar, the CMO of Skyesports, talked about their marketing strategy and said, “Whether it was our long-time partners in AMD or the digital shopping store Croma, we made sure that every one of them hit their advertising goals through esports. With the industry expected to hit new heights in the coming years, Skyesports will be in the forefront of breaking barriers and setting a benchmark, similar to what we did with the Skyesports League this summer.”
Skyesports also secured a major investment by JetSynthesys in September 2021. Rajan Navani, the vice chairman and managing director of JetSynthesys commented on their valuable investment and said the following:
“We are happy to have Shiva and his team as part of the JetSynthesys family. Indian gaming has immense potential, and the talent which resides in the non-metros often goes unnoticed. Our vision, therefore, is to build esports at the grassroot level and empower individuals who have a passion for gaming to make a career of it through JetSkyesports. 2022 is going to be a year of reckoning for esports globally as it becomes a medal event in the Asian Games, and at our end we have many things in the pipeline to follow the raging success of the Jet Skyesports Championship 3.0.”
Skyesports Championship 2021 was their most prestigious event in 2021 with a prize pool of whopping ₹55 lakhs. A total of five games namely Battlegrounds Mobile India (BGMI), VALORANT, Clash of Clans, Brawl Stars, and Sachin Saga Cricket Champions were featured at this event.
This event helped Skyesports to expand into South Asian region as teams from Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh were able to participate in the competition for Valorant.
One of the highlights and milestones of the year was Cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar attending the awards ceremony of this event at Taj Lands End, Mumbai. Mr. Tendulkar delivered some inspiring words at this event and said “This is new India, where sports and esports gaming are accepted as a career option.”
Shiva Nandy, the CEO of Skyesports, described the event as a “rare occurrence of traditional sports stars overlapping with gaming personalities” and added, “I expect this to become a norm in the future with the inclusion of esports as a medal event in the Asian Games 2022.”
Asian Games 2022 will be the biggest event this year as esports is included as an official event for the first time in history. Skyesports is in the forefront of Indian esports and will be helping Indian athletes to prepare for the final competition. They have launched a #RoadtoAsianGames programme for this specific reason.
The company’s first event under this programme featured the launch of a new IP, the Skyesports Mobile Open. It had a prize pool of Rs. 40 lakhs, split between BGMI, FIFA Mobile, Hearthstone, Clash of Clans, Brawl Stars, and Real Cricket 20.
The year full of competition ended with Skyesports Streamer Showdown where they added yet another title to their arsenal in the form of Free Fire.
“We were able to sustain continuous growth despite the ban on PUBG Mobile due to the wide portfolio of games we organize tournaments for,” Nandy said. “One of India’s most played mobile games, Free Fire, has now been added to that list.”
Skyesports will continue to grow in 2022 as well and has promised to bring back the LAN ecosystem, owing to the India’s wide vaccination program covering most of the country. All of the Skyesports’ IPs will make a return as well.
Skyesports has grown a lot in the past few years with a jump from eleven employees in 2021 to a total of 41 employees and six consultants by the year end.
