North American esports organisation Pittsburgh Knights has announced plans to host over 200 esports tournaments in 2022, featuring events in Rocket League, VALORANT and Apex Legends.
These tournaments will be produced and broadcast by Knights Arena, the esports organisation’s events arm.
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On the larger end of the spectrum, the Knights will produce quarterly Rocket League and Apex Legends tournaments with prize pools of up to $10,000 (~£7,370).
The Apex Legends quarterly event, titled the Carnage Cup, kicked off last year with teams such as Liquid, TSM, Complexity and XSET participating. The next Carnage Cup is scheduled for Saturday February 19th at 3pm EST.
Jasper Ko, Event Coordinator at Pittsburgh Knights, commented: “We’re very proud of this event schedule. A core goal of the Knights is to share esports. We want to give people the tools, access, and opportunities to play competitively – to hone their skills, meet like-minded players, and have a chance to be seen by top teams.”
The Knights’ Sakura Cup, a women’s VALORANT tournament that launched in 2021, will be back every other month this year, with the first event taking place on February 15th.
Monthly VALORANT (Knights Gauntlet), Halo (Knights Recon), and Rocket League (Knights Drift) tournaments with prize pools up to $5,000 (~£3,685) are also planned. In 2021, the Knights Gauntlet became a monthly fixture in the VALORANT scene with teams like Ghost, Immortals, and Soniqs participating.
There will also be a series of unbroadcast weekly community tournaments in the same titles with prize pools up to $1,000 (~£737).
Lastly, there will be weekly pick-up games tournaments in the Knights Valorant Lobby (KVL) Discord and Knights Gears Lobby (KGL) Discord. The matches played in these Discord chat channels will lead up to weekly prizes with best-of show-matches from the winners of the weeklies scheduled bi-monthly.
Garett Bambrough, General Manager at Pittsburgh Knights, added: “Developers are focusing on top teams most of the time. We’re providing more opportunities for upcoming talent to showcase themselves.
“With our Gauntlet series in 2021, we saw many teams and players get the exposure they needed to close the gap with the top teams and even get signed to organisations. We want to serve the bulk of the competitors and not focus on solely the top percentage of players. The competitive scene will not thrive unless the amateur scene is taken care of.”
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Esports Insider says: It’s great to see Pittsburgh Knights’ ambition and optimism for the 2022 season by planning over 200 esports events. It seems like the organisation’s main mission is to support a wide range of competitors, including the amateur scene, and grow the Knights’ reach even further.
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