Football publication Goal has increased its investment in esports with the signing of its first esports player: Graham “GrayzaGoal” McIntyre.
The Scot will represent Goal at FIFA 18 tournaments, playing on Xbox One, while Goal will work with McIntyre on FIFA content across their social channels and on Goal.com.
McIntyre’s first tournament representing the Goal brand is the Sportego eLeague, a FIFA 18 tournament featuring players from football clubs including Ajax, Manchester City and West Ham, as well as other professional esports teams, including Epilson, Stark eSports and Fnatic.
The Sportego eLeague is managed by Sportego and being broadcast by Goal through their social channels, with the finals to be played at a high-profile football stadium in April.
“By welcoming Graham to the Goal roster we’re looking forward to adding an extra dimension to how we cover FIFA, working with him to advance his career and introduce Goal to an exciting and growing market.”
Paul Rayment, Goal
Prior to joining Goal, McIntyre represented Hibernian of the Scottish Premiership.
Paul Rayment, Goal’s marketing manager, said: “We recognise that for the modern fan FIFA plays an integral role in how they enjoy football, for some it’s their primary connection to the sport. On Goal, we’ve seen this evidenced in the numbers we see for our own live streams and traffic that comes to articles on the game.
“By welcoming Graham to the Goal roster we’re looking forward to adding an extra dimension to how we cover FIFA, working with him to advance his career and introduce Goal to an exciting and growing market.
“Graham’s talent was evident from his performances at the early Gfinity tournaments a few years ago. More recently, his top 100 finishes in the FIFA 18 Weekend League and ending the Celtic eSport League unbeaten shows he has both skill and promise, and we’re aiming for him to represent Goal at major tournaments in 2018.”
Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He graduated from Bournemouth University with a 2:1 degree in Multi-Media Journalism in 2007.
As a long-time gamer having first picked up the NES controller in the late ’80s, he has written for a range of publications including GamesTM, Nintendo Official Magazine, industry publication MCV and others. He worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation up until February 2021, when he stepped back to work full-time on Esports News UK and offer esports consultancy and freelance services. Note: Dom still produces the British Esports newsletter on a freelance basis, so our coverage of British Esports is always kept simple – usually just covering the occasional press release – because of this conflict of interest.
