Rainbow 6 Siege publisher Ubisoft has today announced a new esports tournament for the UK and Ireland, and confirmed that the game’s ESL Premiership will no longer exist.
The Rainbow 6 UK Ireland Nationals competition was revealed on the game’s official UK Twitter page:
Detailed information has not yet been revealed, but as the tweet states, the tournament will kick off on July 2nd 2020 and run for eight weeks. Expect more info to drop over the coming weeks.
This competition will replace the RB6 ESL Premiership for the UK and Ireland, which has been running since January 2018.
There’s been a ton of activity from this tournament – it’s responsible for one of UK esports’ biggest stories in recent years: Former MnM Gaming UK players went on to win the Rainbow Six Pro League Season 10 finals with Navi last November.
The RB6 Prem acted as a real proving grounds for top talent in the game who went on to do big things, including several British players. It also attracted a range of orgs including Team Secret, Fierce Esports, Enclave Gaming, Vexed, Wind and Rain and more.
Cr4zy also signed MnM Gaming’s newer UK-heavy Rainbow Six Siege team earlier this year.
Ubisoft has focused heavily on Rainbow Six Siege esports in the UK and Ireland in recent years, with tournaments in conjunction with student bodies the NUEL and NSE, as well as the likes of GAME Belong Arenas and epic.LAN.
Its decision to run its own tournament and not have an ESL Premiership has not been explained, but perhaps we’ll receive more info on this in the coming weeks.
Will Attwood, ESL UK’s former product manager, is now working on this UK Ireland Nationals project as Ubisoft UK’s marketing esports manager.
Last year, ESL UK announced a spate of voluntary redundancies as part of a global restructure.
Esports News UK has reached out to ESL UK for comment and will update this article if we receive one.
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.
