Bandai Namco and Twitch are teaming up in hopes of elevating the eSports scene for fighting games, specifically through the use of the Bandai Namco-published game Tekken 7.
The result of that team up is a multi-year partnership between the two companies. The duo has brought about the creation of the Tekken World Tour: an eSports league centered around Tekken 7 with a prize pool of $200,000 for its first six-month long season.
The partnership itself grants Twitch exclusive broadcasting rights to Tekken World Tour events, the first of which kicks off in just a few weeks. Beyond just that, the streaming company is also in charge of managing overall league operations for the tour.
This is far from the first eSports initiative Twitch has backed, but the partnership is the first to focus on a fighting game like Tekken 7. The company notably entered into a similar arrangement last year with Psyonix for a Rocket League league, and soon after announced a partnership with the Italian eSports platform Faceit for the competitive Counter-Strike eSports Championship Series.