Blue Star Capital's Googly inks cricket e-sports deal

(Sharecast News) - Technology, media and gaming investor Blue Star Capital announced a collaboration between its investee company Googly Media Holdings and the Caribbean Premier League (CPL) on Wednesday, forging an agreement to create the E-sports Caribbean Premier League (ECPL). The AIM-traded firm noted that the CPL boasted an impressive following, with more than 720 million annual viewers for its T20 cricket contests.

As the upcoming CPL tournament was set to begin on 16 August, it said fans would now have the opportunity to participate in the ECPL via Googly.

The ECPL, which would carry a $25,000 prize pool, was set to run for seven weeks across three distinct stages.

To determine their official mobile e-sports representative, each CPL squad would host open qualifiers on the Googly e-sports platform.

Blue Star Capital holds a minority 0.6% stake in Googly, and also considered it a business partner of another portfolio entity, Dynasty Gaming and Media.

"The Indian gaming market continues to enjoy strong growth and Googly's agreement with the Caribbean Premier League is a tremendous launch pad for Googly," said Blue Star executive chairman Tony Fabrizi.

"We look forward to further announcements on this initiative and many others planned by Googly later this year."

At 1438 BST, shares in Blue Star Capital were up 3.33% at 0.124p.

Reporting by Josh White for Sharecast.com.