TORONTO, Feb. 27, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Millennial Esports Corp. ("Millennial" or the "Company") (TSX VENTURE:GAME) today announced that subsidiary Stream Hatchet had successfully completed the roll-out of a new offering that, for the first time, provides sponsors of Esports events and leagues with an analytics solution that utilizes image recognition technology to mine, measure, and monetize sponsor exposure. The offering was first deployed in support of the Intel Extreme Masters PyeongChang tournament, an event recognized by the IOC and held in advance of the opening of the 2018 Winter Olympic Games.

Global sports and entertainment agency Wasserman joined forces with Stream Hatchet for this project, elevating its analytics solution within the Esports space through Wasserman’s unmatched capabilities in sponsorship performance measurement and years of experience in providing actionable insights that maximize the value of sport sponsorships. Wasserman will provide Stream Hatchet with exclusive image recognition and exposure analysis that tracks the quantity, quality and value of each sponsor placement.

“We developed this offering to provide valuations of traditional sports sponsorship to the world of Esports where advertisers and sponsors don’t yet have clarity,” said Jake Phillips, President of Business Development at Stream Hatchet. “This tool also offers event organizers and tournament hosts, like  ESL, a way to accurately price the sponsorship packages they’re creating.”

On top of providing an analytics solution for Intel’s investment as title sponsor & operator of ESL’s Extreme Masters tournament, this offering also delivered a wealth of analysable and actionable data. Insights generated by the report include the fact that Intel received total exposure of more than 14 hours over the course of the 25.5 hours of total gameplay, while also receiving exposure in more than half of the livestreams throughout the three days of the tournament.

“It is an exciting time to be in Esports,” said Wasserman Senior Vice President, Properties, Zack Sugarman. “We are thrilled to bring our 20-plus years of sponsorship knowledge to Esports and work with Stream Hatchet to help elevate their analytics and reporting offering.”

At the Intel Extreme Masters PyeongChang, eighteen players representing regions from around the world competed for the $150,000 prize pool from February 5-7 in a first-of-its-kind tournament featuring Blizzard Entertainment’s iconic real-time strategy game, “StarCraft* II.” After three days of competition, Canadian Sasha “Scarlett” Hostyn, the only female competitor to qualify for the tournament, secured the victory as the IEM PyeongChang champion, edging out one of the world’s best players, Kim "sOs" Yoo Jin, in an upset victory.