Esports isn’t the place for traditional sports sponsorship marketing
While brands might think of esports as an extension of their existing sports sponsorship strategy, in reality, it’s a whole different ball game, writes The Works’ Tomas Haffenden.
Professional sports and brand sponsorship have a long and lucrative history. With guaranteed audiences in the millions, sport has always represented a good return on investment for those with enough money to get in on the action.
With teams from major sports demanding huge sums for the privilege of sponsorship, all forward thinking brands are always on the lookout for the next big sporting opportunity before it breaks into the mainstream. With a projected industry value of $1.5 billion by 2020, esports is shaping up to be exactly that.
So true.
The segment has so much potential, but there is still a ways to go for brands. Finding the right streams to watch on Twitch can be a challenge, even for the hosts and producers on our dedicated ANZ esports show, The Podium. There’s no such issues for traditional sports like the NRL or marquee events like tonight’s State Of Origin, hence drawing much bigger sponsorship dollars.
It’ll get there and as Tomas has outlined, will be really exciting to see how brands evolve due to the nature of the industry and the foundations Twitch has built.