(Yicai Global) Aug. 25 -- Tencent Holdings, the world's largest gaming company, will further promote the integration of Chinese e-sports with traditional athletic events this year and create a comprehensive e-sports competition with provinces and municipalities as participating units.

The official e-sports associations of each province and city will be in charge of organizing teams to take part in the games.

Hou Miao, vice president of Tencent Games and head of its e-sports division, revealed this plan at the Tencent's annual e-sports press conference in Hainan yesterday. Tencent Global Esports Arena has struck cooperative deals with 12 provincial and city e-sports associations, including those of Shanghai, Beijing and Guangdong. It took the lead in starting the provincial team matches of League of Legends, Arena of Valor and FIFA Online 4 this year, and will expand them to more regions and more competitions.

E-sports and traditional athletic competitions are embracing one other after e-sports' inclusion in the Asian Games in 2018 and the setup of the Global Esports Federation last year, Mark Ren, Tencent's chief operating officer, said at the briefing. E-sports will not only generate more business opportunities in terms of event copyrights and sponsorships, but also exert a profound impact on global cultural exchanges.

The ranks of China's e-sports users swelled by about 26 million during the Covid-19 pandemic this year, Tencent said in a joint report with US information, data and measurement agency Nielsen Holdings at the presser. It is expected that the total number of users will exceed 400 million this year and that China will surpass North America for the first time to become the world's most valuable e-sports market.

This year marks the tenth since Tencent embarked into the e-sports sector, and it is also the third year since it released its e-sports city development plan. Tencent will come up with exclusive e-sports industry services for every Chinese city in the future, including establishing a home and away system based on traditional sports events, Hou said, adding “More than 10 cities have set up their own e-sports clubs.”

Editors: Dou Shicong, Ben Armour