Twitter partners with ESL and Dreamhack to stream live e-sports

After making a move into streaming traditional sports, Twitter will now start streaming e-sports. The company announced a partnership with ESL and Dreamhack — two of the biggest organizations in the pro-gaming world — to broadcast tournaments and other e-sports events live on Twitter.

Those broadcasts will start this Saturday, with Twitter streaming the ESL’s Intel Extreme Masters World Championship in Katowice, Poland, for free on its platform. Twitter says it already has more than 15 events locked in for live-streaming this year, including Dreamhack tournaments and future IEM championships. In addition to live tournaments, Twitter will also broadcast a 30-minute weekly e-sports show, featuring the latest highlights and behind-the-scenes footage.

Twitter has increasingly positioned itself as a broadcasting platform over the past few years, signing deals with the NFL and other corporations to stream big-name games and events. Its new move into e-sports broadcasting comes at it’s starting to diversify that streaming content, having hosted live broadcasts of events as varied as the Vergecast.

Today’s announcement also presents Twitter as a potential competitor to Twitch — the streaming service that’s currently the de facto home of video game and e-sports broadcasting. Unlike most of Twitch’s rival services, Twitter already has a user base of millions, as well as an in-built way for fans to communicate with each other without needing to sift through meme-dominated chat channels.