Unikrn Grows Sportsbook Selection In A Big Way With Rocket League Addition

[toc]The Seattle-based esports company Unikrn announced earlier this week it’s adding another popular game to its esports betting repertoire.

The incredibly successful Rocket League is joining the company’s sportsbook portfolio, which will expand Unikrn’s selection to a total of 10 games.

‘Rocket League is a phenomenon’

Unikrn’s announcement foregrounded Rocket League’s status as a “phenomenon.” The game’s central conceit of cars playing soccer has sold more than 10.5 million copies and registered almost 29 million players.

The game was first released in July 2015 for Microsoft Windows and PlayStation 4. In 2016, ports for Xbox One, OS X, and Linux were released.

505 Games, Rocket League’s distributor, issued a physical retail version for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in June 2016.

Since its inception, the game has attracted an incredible fan base, and the game is also consistently among the top streaming games on Twitch.

Professional competition

Rocket League joined esports organizer ESL shortly after its release and saw its first competitive league launch in September 2015. Its Pro League was held between September and October of the same year.

The game’s Champion Series was officially announced by its developer, Psyonix, last March. The first series’ finals boasted a prize pool of $55,000, which was increased to $125,000 in the second season last December.

The 2017 Rocket League Championship Series is scheduled to run March through May this year. The World Championships will take place in June.

Seeing the game’s incredible popularity across multiple streaming platforms, Psyonix announced major investments into the game’s esports scene. The company plans to use more than $2.5 million to fund prize pools and additional competitive events throughout the year.

Unikrn buys into the soccer video game hype

In its announcement, Unikrn revealed it has worked with Australian regulators to add Rocket League as an approved game on the company’s platform. Rocket League joins nine other major esports titles, including Dota 2, League of Legends, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Overwatch, StarCraft, Call of Duty, Heroes of the Storm, Hearthstone, and World of Tanks.

Unikrn CEO Rahul Sood shared the story with Esports Insider:

“We worked with regulators to get Rocket League approved because, quite honestly, all of the people who work here play it! So Karl [Flores], my business partner, got tired of watching them play the game for hours and hours. He decided we needed to get approval on it as soon as possible from regulators to get it onto the sportsbook.”

In the end, Sood added, “It’s a pretty awesome game.”

Image credit: K putt / Flickr.com / CC BY-NC 2.0