Twitter will live stream more than a dozen esports tournaments in 2017

Twitter is teaming up with two of the biggest esports organizations in the world to live stream more than a dozen esports events as well as original esports content including a 30-minute weekly show.

Twitter announced a partnership today with esports tournament organizations ESL and DreamHack to stream more than 15 ESL One, Intel Extreme Masters (IEM) and DreamHack tournaments throughout 2017, including this weekend's IEM Katowice with competitions in League of Legends, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, StarCraft II and Heroes of the Storm. The events are not being streamed exclusively to Twitter and will still be available to watch on other platforms.

Along with these events, which include all nine upcoming DreamHack events in 2017, Twitter will be hosting exclusive live content produced by ESL, which includes a weekly 30-minute show featuring tournament highlights and behind-the-scenes videos, according to an email release.

Twitter's new partnerships add up to about 1,500 hours of live esports content coming to the social media platform this year.

Twitter previously streamed portions of ELeague's first season of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive in the summer of 2016 and has hosted streams for the NFL, MLB, NHL and NBA, so this isn't a completely new venture.

Twitter COO Anthony Noto said in a statement that esports fans already exist on Twitter, so bringing live content to the platform is another way to engage with that specific audience.

"Esports is growing at a rapid pace and we see this collaboration as a way to tap into the engaged audience of gamers that are already using Twitter as a primary source of content," he said.

Esports live streams will kick off on Twitter Saturday with IEM Katowice on the IEM live stream Twitter page. Both ESL and DreamHack also have their own live stream Twitter pages. Streams will be broadcast globally to all Twitter platforms.