The PBA and Dark League Studios teamed up to bring together some of the stars of the PBA, Esports, social media and fans for the PBA Esports Bakbakan this March.
Twelve PBA teams will be represented along with some former professional esports players, influencers and fans to compete in the inaugural battle Mobile Legends: Bang Bang.
All of this has come to fruition after the PBA signed a partnership with Dark League studios to venture into Esports which has become as big if not bigger than conventional spectator sports of late in terms of audience share.
Some familiar faces like Setsuna “Akosi Dogie” Ignacio who is a prominent name for MPL Philippines squad Nexplay Evos. Eric “Eruption” Tai, Elyson “Wrecker” Carranza and Raven “L3bron” Alonzo are all slated to team up with PBA stars like Aljun Melecio, Jerrick Ahanmisi, Allen Mina and Jollo Go.
PBA and Esports make sense
PBA commissioner Willie Marcial at the press conference in Libis said “We’re grateful for this partnership with Dark League. With the history of PBA sports entertainment combined with the Dark League’s growing influence in modern technology, I think this is a win-win situation for both parties,”.
“We want to bridge esports and conventional sports and make people know that esports is not something that says ‘kaka-computer mo lang ‘yan’. It’s something that will continue to grow.” Program Director March Chua added.
Dark League CEO AC Valdenor said that they will eventually introduce Call of Duty mobile, DOTA 2, and Player Unknown’s Battlegrounds in future battles.
This has caught the interest of thousands of fans who submitted their applications for the chance to be drafted to one of the teams and get the chance to win as much as P1,000,000.
Each team will have eight players composed of two PBA players, two influencers, three fans and one college student.
After a single round-robin elimination, the top 4 teams will play a best of five series similar to a PBA championship playoff semi-final.
The competition will happen every Monday for five weeks and will be livestreamed on the PBA social media accounts.
