A brand new sim-racing organization, MEGA Esports, founded from the collaboration between esports teams and real-world racing bodies, has been launched to players in the Oceania region.
Oceania is somewhat of an overlooked area in terms of esports, despite a disproportionately large percentage of its population being famous-to-legendary racing drivers. Chris Amon, Earl Bamber, Jack Brabham, Brendon Hartley, Denny Hulme, Alan Jones, Bruce McLaren, Oscar Piastri, Daniel Ricciardo, and Mark Webber all have F1, Le Mans, and/or WEC wins to their names.
However the region is usually lumped in with Asia in professional esports competitions, in an Asia-Oceania or Pacific region, and with few berths available to drivers from Australia and New Zealand.
That’s despite an uptick in the popularity of sim-racing generally around the world, and the new MEGA Esports outfit aims to bridge that gap with high-level events for players from the region.
MEGA’s owner/founder is Jacob Simonsen, who local enthusiasts may recognize as the man behind bringing the 24 Hours of Lemons franchise to New Zealand (since rebranded as NAZCAR). The team principal is GTPlanet member Nathan Howe, founder of Hooncorp NZ and participant in the 2019 Lemons event as part of a Hooncorp x GTPlanet team.
The organization is also supported by sim racing teams BCG Racing Team and Kings Racing, the Kidbyers Racing League, the Respawn Esports Centre in Wellington, New Zealand, and is working with real-world race sanctioning bodies. There’s some famous faces from the world of GT7 on the MEGA team as well, including GTWS finalists Simon Bishop, Tom England, and Matt Simmons.
MEGA primarily runs events on Assetto Corsa Competizione, with its flagship series — the AUSNZ PS5 Endurance Series — comprising a six-round championship on that platform. There’s also sprint events on ACC, and more solo-focused championships on Gran Turismo 7. Each race is broadcast, with professional commentators Trevor Byers and Mike Howe on mic duty.
For 2025, the AUSNZ PS5 Endurance Series will be an officially sanctioned Australasian esports series and, what’s more, the winning team will take a prize of a fully funded spot on a NAZCAR race grid during the 2025 or 2026 season.
If you’d like to know more, or get involved, you can check out MEGA Esports on Facebook.
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