Counter-Strike: Global Offensive team boosts Latin America esports group’s roster

A new esports team is looking to bring some Latin American pain to the U.S. scene.

Pain Gaming, which bills itself as the biggest electronic sports organization in Latin America, announced today that it has created a team for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive tournament play in North America. Research firm SuperData expects the esports market to reach $1.23 billion by 2019, and the team-based shooter Counter-Strike is one of the most popular competitive games in the scene — and one of the first to enjoy any measure of success on traditional television.

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Pain is based in Brazil, which is the largest gaming market in Latin America, according to Newzoo. The research group says that it will be worth over $1.4 billion in 2016. Pain hired the lineup of Team Alientech for its new team, who were living in Portugal and competing in the European leagues. The group previously won the Alientech invitational II in May. They will debut as Pain’s new team will debut in the ECS Season 2 Open Qualifier on August 19. It will travel to the U.S. on August 17 to stay and train in Denver.

Counter-Strike was the star attraction of Turner’s Eleague, which the media company broadcasted on Twitch and its TBS cable channel. The TBS telecasts attracted 19 million viewers.

“With our team living in the United States and playing tournaments here and there, we can offer to our Brazilian sponsors an international visibility and, in addition, achieve global sponsors”, said Beto Vides, vice president of Pain Gaming, in the press release. “We’ve studied the Counter-Strike: Global Offensive market and after we saw a good opportunity, we began to contact teams committed to our ideals and we are very happy with our new team.”