Espo, an upcoming platform where esports fans can ‘stake’ teams and players, has announced pre-registration.
Officially launching in September 2020, the Espo platform will also offer new ways for companies and brands to sponsor esports teams and players.
‘Staking’ is a mechanism that is commonly used by athletes as a way to provide their financial supporters with some form of incentive, for example a share of prize money or exclusive access to a sporting event.
London-based Espo says its first-of-its-kind digital staking platform will disrupt the esports space. It’s attempting to offer something similar for the esports community that aims to ‘promote global fan inclusion, equal talent opportunity and strong governance’.
This will allow sponsors to get involved, engage with esports fans and promote products and services via the Espo platform. Espo says that despite year-on-year growth in global spectator figures, esports fans are experiencing ‘limited interaction’ with famous teams and players.
“Fan engagement predominantly occurs via social media and video streaming platforms, which is often highly saturated amongst the mass of other fans accessing these platforms and attempting to interact with players simultaneously,” it said in a press release. “The Espo platform changes that with an entirely new way to bring fans closer to their idols, feel invested in the action through staking, share in future prize money winnings and gain access to exclusive Perks offered by Espo.”
‘The Espo platform brings fans closer to their idols and makes them feel invested in the action through staking, share in future prize winnings and access exclusive perks.”
The Espo Community Incentive Program also went live today (June 1st 2020) at www.espo.io/cip and is open to all members of the esports community. The Program will allow participants to earn loyalty points known as STK that will be redeemable for exclusive perks on the Espo platform from launch in September 2020.
Henry James, founder and CEO of Espo, said: “Popular platforms in the esports sector like Twitch and YouTube are focused on enabling content creation and distribution but are not going to extra lengths to enhance the experience of esports fans and their engagement with teams and players.
“Our solution will enable fans to play a fundamental role in supporting their favorite teams and players in a collaborative and meaningful way that is intended to have lasting and rewarding benefits for all parties.
“To make this possible, we have already received letters of intent from leading esports teams and organizations that have expressed interest to work with Espo and feature on the platform. We’re still working through on finalizing these initial agreements and we look forward to sharing announcements with the community in the coming weeks.”
Espo also says that its platform will help rising esports talent be discovered.
Espo has been funded by its founders and an investor network including the principals of Aspenwood Capital and more.
More info will be posted at www.espo.io in due course.
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.
