Valencia Football Club In Esports Deal


SPAINS FOOTBALL CLUB VALENCIA INKS DEAL WITH E-SPORTS PLAYERS
 
La Liga side recruits four Hearthstone pros with Samsung pedigrees.
 
Four former Samsung eSport team members have been recruited by the Spanish La Liga football club Valencia and will be deployed for the club at the Gamergy eSports and Gaming Festival in Madrid later this month, complementing the clubs recent involvement with the Twitch streaming channel.
 
The team will specialise in Hearthstone, an online game developed by Blizzard in which players assemble decks of cards that are used in head-to-head, turn-based battles. However, several eSports media reports have suggested Valencia also plans to form a team in the Rocket League – a football game played with high-powered cars – at a later date.
 
Identifying the players as Diego Evangelion Fuentes, Hector TheFallen Fuentes, Haneul NaRa Lee and Jose Miguel Josemi Pascual, Valencias marketing chief Peter Draper said that eSports has generated significant interest in Europe
 
"This is a very interesting project and a challenge for Valencia CF to enter a sports sector with such a marked growth," he said in a statement on Valencias website. "It puts Valencia CF in the vanguard of the sector that is causing interest throughout Europe."
 
Partnerships with eSports have been increasing among European football clubs; last month, Bundesliga side Schalke expanded into eSports by acquiring the League of Legends team Elements and their place in the European Championship Series; West Ham FC have signed Sean Dragonn Allen, the runner-up at the 2016 FIFA Interactive World Cup, while Wolfsburg have two FIFA players in Benedikt Salz0r Saltzer and David DaveBtw Bythewa