League Two English football club Stevenage FC have launched a new esports and gaming community platform.
The Stevenage FC Esports Arena will allow fans to communicate, compete in FIFA and earn rewards points that can be redeemed for team merchandise and other prizes, as outlined on the Stevenage FC website and this platform page.
It’s powered by US-based platform provider Rival, which also hosts communities for physical basketball teams including the New York Knicks and Orlando Magic.
The first competition on the platform, the Stevenage FC Esports Arena Adult Launch Tournament, will take place on November 28th featuring a $1,000 prize pool.
There’s also an under 18s tournament where participants can win a signed jersey.
Along with the weekly tournaments there will also be ‘on-the-fly’ challenges, allowing participants to earn reward points.
“We are delighted to be working with Rival to launch Stevenage FC’s Esports Arena, which will bring together gamers all over the world playing as Stevenage FC on FIFA to compete in one environment,” said Stevenage FC chief executive Alex Tunbridge.
“The platform is the next step in continuing to make Stevenage FC one of the biggest clubs in the esports world.’’
Rival chief marketing officer Dan Parise added: “We are excited to leverage our state of the art technology with Stevenage FC to support their continued development in the digital gaming space. The club’s progressive approach will create new engagement with fans of all ages and new touchpoints for their corporate partners.”
It’s not the first move in the esports and gaming space from Stevenage FC. Over the past year, the football club became the most played team in the world on FIFA 20 when it challenged gamers to score goals with Stevenage FC to get free food from the club’s shirt sponsor Burger King.
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.
