League of Legends: BMW Partners with Fnatic, G2 Esports, Cloud9, T1 and FunPlus Phoenix
| Tags: League of Legends
| Author David Hollingsworth
The German automotive giant BMW has made a huge move into esports.
BMW has picked up a sponsorship with five of the world’s largest esports (and League of Legends) teams. With the new deal involving Europe’s Fnatic and G2, US organization Cloud9, Chinese side FunPlus Phoenix and Korean organizationsT1.
The partnership will see content activations across social media, jersey sponsorship and what BMW calls “technology transfer.” With teams benefiting from BMW’s engineers and designers on software and hardware.
“Joining forces with the best teams in the world, we aim to use our design and innovation skills to help shape the discipline in the long term.” Said Jens Thiemer, Senior Vice President Consumer and Brand for BMW.
“Our esports involvement is an important milestone providing, for the first time, a new intersectionality with a dynamic and fast-growing community.” Thiemer added. “We consider esports a promising, growing addition to our marketing activities.”
Teams involved in the deal will also get the use of team-branded vehicles to take them to and from events.
Joe Marsh, CEO of T1, also added that T1 was; “thrilled to partner with BMW to elevate innovation and entertainment in the gaming industry. Faker and the entire T1 family are excited to create content, products, and programs with the BMW team that showcase our shared values of competitiveness and premier performance for esports fans and enthusiasts around the world.”
This is undoubtedly a huge deal for esports. While probably in the works before the global COVID-19 shutdown, you have to wonder if the impact on sports and the mainstream appeal of esports won’t see more major global brands dipping their hands into the esports bucket.