Upcoming FIBA Esports III balloons to 60 national teams

Following the success of the previous editions of the FIBA Esports Open, a whopping 60 national teams from all over the world will take part in the upcoming FIBA Esports Open III, which tips off on April 16.

As in the second FIBA Esports Open edition, there will be six regional conferences. Six teams will battle it out in the South East Asia, Africa and Middle East Conferences while North & Central America will have eight sides. South America will have seven teams while 28 will play in the Europe Conference.

For the first time, the North & Central America and Europe Conferences will be comprised of two divisions: Current Generation (PS4) and Next Generation (PS5).

Group stage games are scheduled for Friday and the best-of-three Play-Off series will follow on the Saturday and Sunday.

There are three different weekends for the FIBA Esports Open III. Starting the competition off will be the South East Asia, Africa, Middle East Conferences on April 16-18, and the North & Central America (Current Generation) and Europe (Current Generation) will be held April 23-25.

The FIBA Esports Open III concludes May 7-9 and involves North & Central America (Next Gen), Europe (Next Gen) and South America.

All games, just like previous editions, will be available on FIBA’s digital channels with live content being streamed across Facebook, Twitch and YouTube channels. Group stage games will be shown on Facebook and YouTube and commentated by remote casters thanks to the partnership between FIBA and the commentating platform Spalk, while all Play-Off games will be fully produced from FIBA’s virtual studio in Latvia.

The popularity of the FIBA Esports Opens is plain to see, with 17 national teams having taken part in the inaugural esports competition last June and then 38 in the recent FIBA Esports Open II.

Argentina, Australia, Cote d’Ivoire, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and USA were all victorious in their respective regional conferences during the Esports Open II, which took place over three weekends across November and December in 2020.

Australia, Argentina, Italy, the Philippines and Saudi Arabia topped their respective conferences and emerged victorious at the first-ever FIBA Esports Open earlier last year.

To find out more, visit the FIBA Esports Open III website here.