Torque Esports Funds Coronavirus Research With FaZe Clan Tournament; Develops The Race All-Star Esports Battle

Torque Esports’ tournament and broadcast operations group, UMG Media, has partnered with FaZe Clan to create an online Call of Duty: Warzone Pro-AM tournament to raise funds for groups impacted by COVID-19. In addition, the company expanded into the motorsport genre with the creation “The Race All-Star Esports Battle” – streamed live on YouTube and Twitch.

Coronavirus Fund
Entitled #Fight2Fund, UMG is handling all tournament and broadcast operations/logistics for the competition taking place on Mondy, March 16 at 3:00 pm EST. The stream will be distributed onto FaZe Clan’s official Twitch channel, UMG’s channel, and the individual players’ feeds.

Sixteen teams of three will play in a bracket-style tournament consisting of streamers, music artists, celebrities and more such as Ben Simmons and Juju Smith-Schuster, plus FaZe Clan members Nickmercs, FaZe Apex, FaZe Temperrr, and other gamers.

Torque Esports’ streaming gaming data analytics experts Stream Hatchet has reported a dramatic percent increase in gaming live streaming viewing since the outbreak of the COVID-19 virus – in February this year more than 116 million more hours of content was watched compared to last year.

“More than ever, gaming will be a driving force of entertainment in light of the many industry shutdowns,” says Lee Trink, CEO, FaZe Clan.

“We can create a large amount of collective good and raise funds to support local strained organizations and charities impacted by coronavirus.”

Funds that will be donated to local charities selected by the winning team and raised by the community, FaZe Clan, Call of Duty and Softgiving.

“People are starved of entertainment options at the moment and more and more are turning to live streaming of competitive gaming as part of the massively growing ‘stay at home economy’ that the virus outbreak has created,” says Torque Esports President and CEO, Darren Cox.

“As part of that streaming and gaming industry, the chance to team up with FaZe clan to make a contribution to the wider community like this is the least we can do. Everyone’s lives are being dramatically impacted at the moment and it was important for Torque Esports and UMG to do our part to help and give back.”

The Race All-Star Esports Battle
The event was created following the cancellation of the opening round of the FIA Formula 1 World Championship in Australia which was due to run this weekend. Other major championships including the NASCAR, Formula E, IndyCar, and the World Endurance Championship have also been shut down thanks to the COVID-19 virus pandemic.

The competition featured real-world race drivers including Formula 1 star Max Verstappen, Indy 500 winner Simon Pagenaud and fellow IndyCar drivers Felix Rosenqvist and Colton Herta plus Formula E stars Antonio Felix Da Costa, Max Gunther and Neel Jani – all doing battle against the world’s leading sim racing drivers.

From the birth of an idea to the green flag for Saturday’s fan qualifier event – “The Race All-Star Esports Battle” was created in only 48 hours but had a massive impact across streaming and social media – recording millions of impressions.

• “The Race All-Star Esports Battle” on the rFactor 2 platform was the top streamed esports event the world during the broadcast- beating competitions on League of Legends, Call of Duty, Nioh 2 and PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds.
• Stream Hatchet reported the event had 90% more live viewers in history than any esports racing event ever held on any streaming platform.
• The event outperformed the average major sports league on Twitch, generating more average viewers than major sports leagues.
• “The Race All-Star Esports Battle” viewership was 300% larger than the Team USA Road to the Olympics basketball viewership
• From Thursday to Sunday The-Race.com website achieved a 160% increase in traffic compared to the previous week. Three of the top six stories were on esports racing this week – this is in spite of the dramatic last-minute cancellation of the Australian Formula 1 Grand Prix.
• Total subscribers for The Race YouTube channel grew by 10% in only three days.
• The Race’s @wearetherace Twitter channel had three consecutive days of record traffic and 83% increase in impressions.

“Race fans around the world are starved of entertainment at the moment – but the beauty of esports racing competition is the fact you can set up events anywhere around the world at any time,” says Cox.

“With the current COVID-19 situation around the world, the “stay at home economy” is surging and Torque Esports is ideally positioned to provide the fan base with compelling virtual versions of real-world motorsport.

“But even ‘real-world’ is a difficult description to use – esports is growing dramatically as a competition and entertainment platform and now rivals the box office, TV and digital music combined! That certainly makes it ‘real.’”

“We were able to create this unique opportunity by joining the dots between various Torque Esports companies – we streamed on YouTube via our media platform The Race; streamed on Twitch via our gaming and tournament platform, UMG gaming and measured the online viewership with our market-leading analysis company, Stream Hatchet.

“More people watched today’s ‘The Race All-Star Esports Battle” online than watch a Formula 1 race on Sky TV in the UK – that is an incredible statistic.”

The race was won by sim racer Jernej Simoncic. Torque Esports will repeat the ground-breaking esports racing event next week with separate events for both the real-world racers and the regular esports competitors.

The stream featured live commentary from Formula 1 commentators Jack Nicholls and Jolyon Palmer along with esports racing caller, René Buttler.

“We know about the massive potential for esports – that is why Torque Esports was created – but today’s event drives home the incredible potential for esports racing as an entertainment platform,” says Cox.

“To cultivate a bigger audience than the mainstream combat gaming titles today is quite astounding. Our team raised the bar in the level of the presentation and the race event was run super professionally like a real-world race meeting.”