It feels like Zwift has been building up to this moment. The startup offers an app with virtual worlds that runners, cyclists and triathletes can traverse using their personal treadmill or bike trainer. A virtual avatar will match their performance at home — speeding up when they jog or pedal faster, and dropping off when their legs start to tire — and take other factors like drafting into account. Some treadmills and trainers will also adjust their angle slightly to match the slope that you’re trying to climb.

Zwift has a free run and riding mode, as well as structured workouts and competitive races. Professional cyclists have embraced the latter during COVID-19, and Zwift has respond by putting on additional events that can be watched on its YouTube channel. These broadcasts don’t have the same production values as the Overwatch League or League of Legends European Championship (LEC), but it’s something that cycling fans have been able to latch onto during a tumultuous period for the industry.

Zwift events are different from traditional races — turning is automated, for instance, and it’s harder to sense when another rider might attack. Some Zwift events have Mario Kart-style power-ups, too, that let the rider turn invisible, become lighter, or increase the effects of drafting temporarily. Zwift isn’t concerned about absolute realism and most cyclists have accepted that the platform requires some fresh thinking and strategies.

The competition will be held over six stages that each take roughly an hour to complete.

The virtual Tour de France should be Zwift’s biggest event yet. The competition will be held over six stages that each take roughly an hour to complete. Men and women will race separately, just like real life, but compete over identical courses. The first two stages will take place in Watopia — a fictional world that Zwift developed for its broader running and cycling community — with “several visual additions” inspired by Nice, the coastal town that will host the tour’s ‘Grand Départ’ in real life.

Zwift

The race will then shift to a France map built specifically for the virtual tour. The final stage, meanwhile, will mimic real life with a Paris circuit that loops around the Champs-Élysées and Arc de Triomphe.

Zwift and ASO, the real-life Tour de France organizer, want the event to have a celebratory atmosphere. That’s not to say the races won’t be competitive, though. Twenty-three men’s teams have signed up for the event, including the tour’s reigning champion Egan Bernal and former winners Geraint Thomas and Chris Froome. The women’s competition will be equally fierce, with 17 professional teams that include superstar rider Marianne Vos and Olympic gold medallist Anna van der Breggen.

Like the real-life tour, riders will be able to compete for the green (best sprinter), polka dot (best climber), white (best rookie), and yellow (overall winner) jerseys. Every category will be decided on points — differing from the real-life tour, which uses time to decide the yellow jersey — and all of the scores will be pooled together to decide the best overall team. Zwift chose this system so squads can rotate riders between the various stages.

Zwift

Zwift says the competition will be shown on its website, the Global Cycling Network (GCN) app, and via TV broadcasters in over 130 countries. These include Eurosport (Europe), EurosportAsia (Asia), NBCSN (US), FloBikes (Canada), SBS (Australia), Zhibo.tv (China) and J Sports (Japan). These partnerships are a massive opportunity for Zwift to prove that its platform should be taken seriously. Virtual racing can’t replace real-world cycling, but there’s a chance it could become a complimentary esport that helps teams diversify their revenue and weather difficult financial downturns.

“Today, esports for us is the athletes competing from the comfort of their homes,” Eric Min, CEO of Zwift said on the CyclingTips Podcast last month. “Because of the situation that we’re in. The future of it is, let’s go into an arena with 30,000 or 40,000 people, where we can sell tickets, concessions and broadcast rights. That is the end state.”

It’s not all about the pros, though. The virtual tour will have a side event for amateurs called the Virtual l’Etape du Tour de France. Every weekend, Zwift will take a single stage designed for the elite riders (the first weekend will offer stage two of the virtual tour, for instance) and run 16 “mass participation” sessions throughout Saturday and Sunday. In theory, these will give casual and club-level cyclists a small taste of the Tour de France and a time or score they can directly compare with the professionals.

The virtual Tour will be part of Tour de France United, a series of events and initiatives that will raise money for five charity partners: Emmaüs, Secours Populaire, Jeugdfonds Sport and Cultuur, BiJeWa and Qhubeka.

Will Zwift racing ever supplant the real-life Tour? Probably not. But if the worst happens and the physical Tour de France is cancelled this year, at least fans will have some kind of replacement to watch and remember.

It’s been just over two months since Riot Games debuted its tactical first-person shooter, Valorant. In that time, the company has slowly opened access to the game, letting Twitch users to unlock beta keys by visiting their favorite streamers’ channels, before making it available to all PC players on June 2nd. As gamers eagerly wait to show off their skill in the upcoming ranked mode, Riot has quietly been working to turn the 5v5 FPS into a formal esport, today confirming its first official tournament program: the Ignition Series.

Riot says the Ignition Series will be a collection of competitive events hosted for fans all over the world. The first two — the European G2 Esports Invitational and RAGE VALORANT JAPAN Invitational — are scheduled for June 19th, with future Valorant events planned for fans in nearly every major continent thereafter. The company has teamed up with more than 20 esports organizations, which will lay on each tournament and include a mix of open qualifiers and show matches.

The first Collegiate Clash is due to start in late March and will broadcast live on UMG’s Twitch channel.

The notion of elevating college players isn’t completely novel. Epic is starting official Fortnite college circuits, for instance. However, this could be helpful for any student who’s hoping to compete in the Overwatch League or otherwise make a living from their Mercy or Reinhardt skills. The problem, as such, is simply the limitations of the schedule. A two-month series doesn’t give players much opportunity to thrive — the scholarships will help, but victory won’t necessarily guarantee a path to glory.

Fox also asserted that Raizada has retaliated against him for bringing up Raizada’s use of racist language against ex-CEO Jace Hall. Riot Games cut Echo Fox from its League of Legends Championship Series after it argued that the team hadn’t addressed Raizada’s behavior, with Echo Fox eventually selling to Kroenke for just over $30 million.

Not surprisingly, the lawsuit isn’t getting a warm reception. The attorney for Sclavos and the venture firm, Linda McFee, claimed the lawsuit was a “senseless diatribe” and denied that either Raizada or Sclavos abused company funds. Instead, she characterized it as an attempt to “deflect blame” for Fox’s management troubles. Raizada had previously sued Fox for allegedly failing to make a $2.5 million loan payment, although that was settled in June.

Whoever’s right, the lawsuit illustrates the growing complexity of esports. Now that some teams are big businesses, there are fierce fights over everything from ownership to players’ revenue shares. Those involved don’t want to lose control or risk missing big payouts.