In Play: HODL On Tight (Esprouts x Esports Insider)
A rehash of my blog for Esports Insider, the leading business to business platform in esports. The original mailer is here.
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Good day one and all and welcome to Esports Insider’s new look In Play written by me, Ollie Ring.
I’ve been reliably informed that Tom Daniels, the former author of this newsletter, is still refreshing the Unikrn page trying to stick a fiver on himself to win his next ranked CS2 match. He’s also found some partnerships to write about at The Dotted Line. So for better or worse, you’re stuck with me to give you your monthly roundup of what’s hot and what’s not in the wonderful world of esports betting.
Not much has changed since the dawn of 2024. Sponsorships dominate the scant January headlines, with GG.Bet executives continuing to purr at ‘traditional’ operators' apparent ineptitude when it comes to an esports offering. Additionally, the burgeoning crypto casino scene has started to market more aggressively in the space. In my look ahead, I’ll discuss the opportunity for UK-licensed operators in 2024.
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In a world of missed opportunities, GG(WP).BET
The news in January has been dominated by GG.BET. The betting company has announced expanded deals with both Team Vitality and Natus Vincere and a new sponsorship with BLAST Premier.
GG.BET, with its Ukrainian roots, has been a long-standing partner of Natus Vincere. The two organisations first partnered in 2021, and have now refreshed the deal with the promise of extra content through 2024. Na’Vi remains an organisation synonymous with Counter-Strike success, finishing third in the Counter-Strike: 2 BLAST Premier World Final 2023.
Probably owing partly to the prolonged absence of Na’Vi superstar Oleksandr ‘s1mple’ Kostyljev, Team Vitality romped past both Na’Vi and FaZe on their way to victory in the most recent S-Tier CS2 tournament. Vitality and GG.BET promised a range of activations to make esports “even more popular around the globe” as part of their renewal.
The most interesting news is the bookmaker’s 2024 sponsorship of the BLAST Premier tournament series. If you’re getting a sense of Deja Vu, I forgive you, for in March 2023, Entain-owned unikrn secured a multi-year partnership for this very tournament. A reported $50 million investment, unikrn’s marketing team opted to solely advertise unikrn Brazil during the Paris Major - offering Portuguese-language adverts in round breaks. It transpires that no one told them that advertising rights to Gaules’ stream, where the majority of Brazilian fans consume their Counter-Strike content, was carved out and awarded to GG.BET. Arguably, this latest partnership is GG.BET mopping up the awful mess left by a botched acquisition that will live long in the memory.
HODL on tight, here comes the crypto
Per an article in the Financial Times, Stake.com’s Gross Gaming Revenue (GGR) reached $2.6 billion in 2022, positioning the company as the seventh-largest gambling company globally. The hyper-glorification of slots on Twitch led to a ban on Curacao licensed operators being broadcast on the platform. Stake’s response to losing that affiliate business was to launch its own streaming platform, Kick, which has become a breeding ground for all things not-so-nice.
Stake hasn’t gone overly aggressive in competitive video gaming, but those looking to compete in a similar demographic have ramped up marketing spend. FaZe Clan and Rollbit claimed to have signed “one of the largest sponsorship deals in the history of esports.” Following the exciting news of potential revenue, FaZe’s stock spiked over 100%, reaching a lofty high of $0.35. It has since resumed a predictable decline. Dare I say, the partnership’s likely to be better for FaZe than it is for Rollbit given the advertising restrictions on the brand’s main content creators — and the fact you can’t access it from any of FaZe’s largest markets.
Meanwhile, cryptocurrency betting platform Thunderpick announced a sponsorship with the* gameHERs, a company that looks to expand the reach of the female competitive video gaming world. Nothing like a Thunderpick FemaLED Pro-AM to further the cause… Money’s money, and if it helps further the female scene, then so be it.
UK betting: If there’s time to do it right, it’s now
The Blast Premier Spring Finals head to the OVO Arena, Wembley in June, and the League of Legends World Championship Final will pack-out the O2 Arena come November — two amongst many other major LANs coming to the UK in 2024. Yet I can count the number of operators in the UK that even pretend to care about esports on half a hand — Dragoni remains esports-focused, and Midnite maintains a strong esports portal.
Large UK-licensed operators will throw the kitchen sink at a waning Cheltenham Festival and Euro 2024. Predictably, the cost of consumer acquisition will rocket yet higher.
Meanwhile, the above two esports events promise the creme de la creme of competition in the two most popular esports by betting volume. They offer access to the ‘elusive’ audience that operators chunter on about on quarterly updates to appease disgruntled investors.
I understand a $50 million acquisition-gone-wrong and another public esports betting company faltering does not paint the prospects in the best of lights. But think to yourself, why do these companies go public? Why do these companies fail?
Simple. The failure to acknowledge esports for what it is: a vital cog in a future-proofed marketing strategy, not an immediate revenue boon. 2024 provides the biggest opportunity for top-tier UK operators to get esports right. It can’t be that hard, can it?