EA Sports partners with ELEAGUE for FIFA 19

FIFA 19 esports has a new host and tournament partner, bring next month's FUT Champions Cup to North America for the first time.

EA Sports has announced that it will team up with esport tournament organizer ELEAGUE for multiple competitive FIFA 19 events later this year.

ELEAGUE, formed by Turner and IMG, is a well-known brand within the esports industry which has held events in multiple games including Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Rocket League, Overwatch, Dota 2, Tekken, Formula E and more.

As a result of this partnership, ELEAGUE has become the first North American tournament partner to host a FIFA 19 FUT Champions Cup. Next month's FUT Champions Cup will take place Febraury 22-24 in the ELEAGUE Arena at Turner Studios, Atlanta. The tournament will feature 64 of the world's best players competing for a lion's share of a $100,000 prize pool. Having this tournament in addition to the eMLS set of tournaments is a huge boost for the North American FIFA scene.

The partnership appears to be similar to EA's deal with Gfinity which saw the London based host FUT Champions Cup back in December. On top of that, the company hosted its own License Qualifier Event (LQE) earlier this month with the Gfinity FIFA Series which was won by Basel's Nicolas 'Nicolas99' Villalba.

ELEAGUE will have the chance to host its own LQE later this year as the American organisation announced it will hold another FIFA event between May 3-5 although no other details have been announced as of yet.

EA promised there would be a lot more LAN events for FIFA 19 and so far, the publishers are sticking to their word. As Todd Sitrin, SVP and GM of the EA Competitive Gaming Division explains, this partnership is a huge step in the right direction:

"ELEAGUE is a fantastic viewership platform for competitive FIFA and accelerates the mainstream esports and sports connection thanks to the power of Turner Sports. We’re seeing rapid growth for EA SPORTS FIFA competitive gaming right now around the world, and the opportunity to host a major event in North America will be an accelerant to this growth."

ELEAGUE's FIFA tournaments will be streamed on its own Twitch channel and Bleacher Report Live - Turner's own livestreaming service. The latter has plans to integrate the esport tournaments with its own coverage of the UEFA Champions League.