The Overwatch League’s New York Excelsior has announced that it’s teaming up with Verizon for a special event to help raise money for charity.
The tournament, hosted on NYXL’s Twitch channel, will be broadcast via Verizon’s pre-commercial 5G network, which is a first for Overwatch. It will take place at Alley, a curated community for creators in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, New York, which is home to Verizon’s 5G incubator.
All proceeds of the event will go towards Digital Girl, a nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering inner-city youth, especially young girls, to pursue careers and studies in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math disciplines.
The event will showcase a competition between nine players—Jimmy “Majin” Baye, Karim Jovian, Michael “Padromi” Padro, “Skye HighwinD,” Kenneth Cardez, Hailey “HaileyDaBear” Doro, Nathan Gonzales, Abraham “Magicz” Urag, and Luigino Gigante—in a Free-For-All. It will be broadcast by Rod “Slasher” Breslau and Jimmy “Jim Basco” Mondal.
“We’re excited about the potential of this technology and can’t wait to bring 5G to gaming and NYXL for the first time,” Rohit Gupta, a partner at NYXL’s ownership group Sterling.VC, explained in the press release. “We at NYXL are thrilled to partner with Verizon and Alley powered by Verizon to host this special event for charity.”
Meanwhile, the NYXL team has dominated the majority of the inaugural season of the league, currently holding a 33-6 overall record with one game left to play in the regular season. The team has already locked down the number one seed for the playoffs, which begin next month.
