Nintendo of Japan has announced a partnership with the Nippon Professional Baseball league (NPB), the highest level of baseball in Japan, to create a brand new esports series based around Splatoon 2.
The series will be known as the NPB eSports Series and is scheduled to begin in Spring 2019 in Tokyo. The league will feature 12 professional teams of four players representing the baseball teams currently competing in the NPB league in Japan.
To take part in the league, players will need to register for the fourth annual Splatoon Koshien event held in Japan from July 2018. A scout for each team will be attending the Koshien event to pick teams based on their own criteria.
If selected, a team will contact players to take part in a special interview next February. All 12 teams will then be shown off at a special presentation in March before the league kicks off.
This isn’t the first esports league that NPB have created. NPB also confirmed a similar partnership with Konami a few days ago to create an esports pro league for the popular Japanese baseball title Jikkyo Powerful Pro Yakyu. The game is known internationally as Power Pros.
The Jikkyo Powerful Pro Yakyu league will consist of 36 participants with qualification happened through online tournament series in September. There will then be a draft held of Sept. 29 where the 12 NPB teams will each choose three players to represent them in the league for a shot at earning a part of the 12 million yen ($10,000) prize pool.
The prize for the Splatoon 2 league, as well as how matches will be scheduled and streamed, has yet to be announced.
