Late-breaking news from the official PAX Twitter feed and Major League Soccer on Friday night: the eMLS league, a collaboration between the MLS and EA Sports, will play their inaugural eMLS Cup event at this year’s PAX East.

Late-breaking news from the official PAX Twitter feed and Major League Soccer on Friday night: the eMLS league, a collaboration between the MLS and EA Sports, will play their inaugural eMLS Cup event at this year's PAX East. https://youtu.be/hcW5i3-OO0A From the official Major League Soccer website,

From the official Major League Soccer website, the eMLS league is a joint effort between MLS and EA Sports, utilizing EA’s EA Sports FIFA 18 to bring the best FIFA players from the United States and Canada into an official competitive gaming arena.

Local competitions will determine what players move on to the eMLS Cup event at PAX East. That event will determine the US and Canadian qualifiers for the EA Sports FIFA 18 Global Series Playoffs, and a potential berth in August’s FIFA eWorld Cup. Given that events for the FIFA eWorld Cup began last November elsewhere in the world, North American FIFA fans may be at a bit of a disadvantage here (which is different than in real soccer how, exactly? ed.). Exact details of how the local tournaments will be set up, who is eligible, and how exactly the official MLS clubs figure into this have not been announced yet.

“This step forward into competitive gaming is a key component in our partnership with EA Sports to promote deeper engagement and connections between MLS supporters and millions of FIFA players around the world,” said MLS Business Ventures President and Managing Director, Gary Stevenson. With the massive rise of the eSports movement in the last couple years, it makes perfect sense for Major League Soccer to be getting into this action.

Marooners Rock will be live at PAX East this year, and we’ll be keeping an eye out for how the eMLS Cup goes. eSports have been a big part of a number of past PAX events, most notably the League of Legends championship that was held at a few PAX West events. For gamers interested in getting into the FIFA eSports scene, EA Sports FIFA 18 is available on Sony’s PlayStation®4 and PlayStation®3 consoles, Microsoft’s Xbox One and Xbox 360 console families, the Nintendo Switch, and for PC’s via EA’s Origin service.