Gaming platform development company Rival is in the news today with a new executive hire plus a client announcement with the NBA’s Pistons.

The Pistons announced that it has become the first pro sports organization in the U.S. to partner with Rival in launching a new gaming community for its fans. Using Rival’s back-end, white-label technology, the Pistons will start the Motor City Rivals esports community that will start with an NBA 2K21 Tournament next month. The tournament includes $1K USD in cash prizes, plus the chance to play online versus Pistons guard Bruce Brown, or what the team is touting as “another mystery NBA player”. The tournament will have presenting sponsorship from Gamestar.

Meanwhile, Rival has hired ESL Senior VP/Brand Partnerships Paul Brewer to come aboard as executive vice president of global business development. On top of ESL, Brewer has prior stops at ESPN, Turner Broadcasting, and Samsung. Rival CMO Dan Parise said a key expertise that Brewer will bring is a “really deep knowledge of how the commercial side of (gaming) really works given his time at ESL”.

Brewer noted that this role will allow him to marry his backgrounds in both traditional sports and gaming. He added: “The traditional sports side is trying to get younger and engage with different audiences, and they’re trying to figure it out through gaming and esports and haven’t really done that yet …  (Rival) hits on that white space or empty space for traditional sports teams because of what the product is and what the platform can do to engage traditional sports fans who we know are gamers.”