Asia: eSports admitted to the Asian Games, following agreement between Olympic leaders and Alibaba

The Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) signed an agreement with Alibaba Sports Group (a subsidiary dedicated to the sports activities of the Chinese e-commerce group Alibaba Group Holding Limited) until 2022, on 17/04/2017. Notably, the agreement includes the presence of eSports at the OCA competitions, and in particular at the 2018 Asian Games in Jakarta (Indonesia, from 18/08 to 02/09/2018) and those in 2022 in Hangzhou (China).

eSports will first be demonstrated at the 2017 Asian Games in Ashgabat (Turkmenistan) from 17 to 27/09/2017. Multiple types of games, including multiplayer online games and a FIFA 17 video game competition, should be offered.

Alibaba Sports Group is organsing the World Electronic Sports Games (WESG), the first edition of which was held in April 2016. Alibaba Sports Group became a partner of the International Federation of eSports on 26/07/2016, upstream of its major competition, the "World Cyber Games" series, with many stages planned in China. Alibaba has invested 1bn yuan (€135.5m) into the development of eSports in China.

• The International eSport Federation…