Indian esports tournament operator Jet Skyesports announced Friday the launch of Skyesports Masters, a new franchised Counter-Strike league specifically for India. For 2023, the league will offer three months of competition, a multi-day LAN Finals event hosted in Mumbai, and a total prize pool of 2 Crore INR, or roughly $245K USD.
Jet Skyesports revealed in release that eight national and international franchised teams have been included the league and that the goal is to share revenue streams from “sponsorships, merchandise sales, and media rights deals.”
The launch of Skyesports Masters is a bit of a milestone as it represents the first official franchised esports league in India. In 2024 when the rest of the CS:GO esports ecosystem switches off to Counter-Strike 2, it appears that Skyesports Masters will as well.
Jet Skyesports also noted in its announcement that it has partnered with local gaming cafés across 20 different cities in India such as Chennai, Delhi, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Pune, Mumbai, Ahmedabad, and more to serve as locations for franchised teams to find homegrown talent through “cafe qualifiers.”
Scheduling for the Skyesports Masters will be announced “soon.” Action from the league will be broadcast via Skyesports’ YouTube channel in multiple languages.
It will be interesting to see if this league designed specifically for India can someday be a part of the broader CS:GO ecosystem that is mostly dominated by tournament organizers such as ESL FACEIT Group and BLAST.
