Game publisher Garena has announced a $1m BRL (~£160,000) prize pool off-season tournament in Brazil for its mobile battle royale Free Fire.

Titled the ‘C.O.P.A. FF: Corrida do Milhão‘ (roughly translated as Free Fire Cup: The Million Race), the tournament will feature the 18 teams qualified for the Brazilian Free Fire League’s (LBFF) first division, plus six invited teams.

The cup will be held from June 22nd to July 2nd. Similarly to the LBFF, it will be broadcast on the Brazilian TV channel RedeTV!. TikTok, YouTube and Garena’s streaming platform BOOYAH! will also broadcast the competition.

The C.O.P.A FF was created during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 to keep the Free Fire scene active after the cancellation of its second split of that year. In 2022, the C.O.P.A. FF comes back for teams that did not qualify for the Free Fire World Series (FFWS), thus filling the gap left between the two regular yearly splits.

Interestingly, the competition attracts a bigger prize pool than the latest split of LBFF, which totalled $745,000 BRL (~£119.000).

Esports Insider says: The C.O.P.A. comeback is an answer by Garena to complaints from the Free Fire community to fix the gap between LBFF splits. While LOUD and Vivo Keyd have games in May due to their qualification to the FFWS, other teams would basically remain inactive until around August. The big prize pool is surely a way to bring relevance to the competition.