Farming Simulator League soon to be a real thing

Proving that you can turn anything into a competition if you really want to, Farming Simulator '19 is about to get its own esports league.

The studio behind the surprisingly popular simulation series, GIANTS Software, first dipped its toes into the competitive waters the last couple of years with the Farming Simulator Championships. Now, they've got grand ambitions to turn that into a full fledged esport.

"Competitive farming is something people enjoy for years now," said CEO of GIANTS Software and manager of their esports division said in a statement, "but it hasn’t been done in eSports so far... We believe we found the right mix of real farming and fun to play game elements to ensure everyone will find it entertaining."

The League will comprise of ten tournaments across Europe, with the winners going on to compete for the Championship and 100.000€ (nearly $115,000US) in prizes. The tournaments themselves will also have some pretty nice rewards of their own, bringing the total amount of cash to be won around 250.000€.

The League will be using the latest game in the series, Farming Simulator 19, which will itself be getting a new 3x3 team mode and will be incorporating that into the competition instead of the previously used sale stacking.

I swear I'm not making any of this up, you guys.

As much as we kid, it turns out that competitive e-farming is a bigger draw that one might think. The first event, held in Hanover, Germany in 2017, drew larger than expected crowds. (h/t Hotspawn). As you can see from the video above, the finals of the tournament held at AgriTechnica 2017 were a big hit. So much so that the trade show plans to host one of the league tournaments this year as well.

As it's still early in the year, details about the rest of the league are still forthcoming. We'll share them with you as we learn them.

Is a Farming Simulator League something you'd be interested in watching - or even competing in? We have a comments section below, make us of it, my friends!