You'll never believe these FIVE things happened in esports this week...
A seriously not very serious look back at the most interesting happenings in #esports in the last week. Let’s go with the top five.
Sports media behemoth Sports Illustrated rock up to #esports in style.
The brand has sparked new hope within content creators and journalists who have seen many a mainstream brand try and fail!
Maybe they’ll have cracked it!
Ah b*llocks. Maybe that’s just a one off, though.
You can read my words of adulation here.
Riot Games are to apparently consider esports betting sponsors
This comes at an interesting, yet odd time given the worldwide regulatory landscape. In several regulated markets, advertising is being heavily clamped down on, and in the US irresponsible breaches of state-level marketing practices have been met by heavy fines ($250k Penn/Barstool for campus advertising in Ohio, $500k DraftKings for mailer to under 21s and use of the word “free-bet”).
My good pal Cody breaks down the overarching story in his Sharpr substack (here).
My view: This is hinted for Riot’s FPS title, Valorant. Betting on Valorant, as Cody acknowledges, already exists, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the game needs betting, nor does betting need to sponsor it. Riot circuits provide an attractive proposition for a more ‘steady’ advertising proposition, but given the complications around advertising globally, sponsoring a worldwide product is becoming increasingly fiddly and less worth the cost.
See my comment on Team Liquid x Entain here.
Organisations with teams competing in Riot titles have long had betting sponsors, just specific to their CS:GO or Dota 2 team. With regional marketing budgets - Valorant teams being EU, Dota teams being SEA and CS:GO teams being NA (for example) - every game/team sponsorship is a different proposition in its entirety.
North American advertising regulation is proving to be as big a sh*t show as its overall gambling legislature, so having your brand on the front of an esports jersey will probably cost you more in compliance than you’ll make in revenue.Excel Esports partners with HSBC UK
Ignoring that global financial meltdown or whatever’s going on, this is a tidy little partnership that should benefit many a young’un.With banking and thus pure capitalism there’s understandable doubt and scorn, but supporting young people and entrepreneurs to build financial skills and promote financial health and education is definitely a good thing.
Especially in the United Kingdom, where the incumbent government couldn’t give two hoots. As long as you’re in the office.
And of course have to give Dave a shout out for the topical one-liner:Guild Esports turn to AI to find and develop player talent
David Beckham backed Guild, one of the first teams to reveal an esports academy, have delegated responsibility for the running of said academy to robots.
I reached out to ChatGPT to ask just how they’d be helping Guild:
Furthermore, sources inside the organisation sent me a screenshot of the most recent C-level discussion:
Shroud and Sacriel team up with Splash Damage for ‘PROJECT ASTRID’ game
Announcing #ProjectAstrid – a AAA open-world survival game, developed in partnership with @Sacriel & @shroud Find out more: splashdamage.com/news/announcin… Sign up for updates: splashdamage.com/newsletter/Not strictly esports, but Shroud once adorned a Cloud9 jersey and popped some heads in CS:GO (plus is undoubtedly one of the most entertaining FPS streamers ever).
As streamers look to diversify income through things like Dr Disrespects non-fungible fungus or whatever it is, launching a game is one way to do it.
Sacriel is an absolute champion of survival games and, bar the dodgy tash, a cracking chap. Shroud has also played his fair share - and with the team at Splash Damage (a solid bunch) this could be well exciting.
Not for competitive esports, but just for gamers.
I’m also crap at survival games.
P.S. If you’re interested in non-fungible fungus, Splash Damage has already ruled it out of Project Astrid - so look elsewhere.