German car manufacturer BMW, has decided to shift to esports by forming partnerships with 5 gaming orgs such as Cloud9 (US), FunPlus Phoneix (China), Fnatic (UK), G2 Esports (Germany) and SK Telecom (South Korea) in order to increase their reach & involvement and to catch more eyes in titles likes DOTA 2, Fortnite, FIFA, and League of Legends.
These gaming organisations have around 8.1 million follow-ups and a massive reach across social media on platforms like Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, Twitch, and so on which is around 11 times more than that of BMW. The teams have been allotted a promotional slogan as a hashtag i.e. “Together in Rivalry” on their streaming platforms and social networks.
Through its diverse content on streaming platforms and its following on social media platforms, G2 alone increased the audience involvement by 30 percent. In December, Joseph Tsai, co-founder of Alibaba made an investment of $10 million on G2 to become a minority shareholder and as per Forbes G2’s net worth is around $165 million which is 57% more than its net worth last year.
BMW had initiated last year’s negotiations with teams and decided to sign individual agreements. G2’s Rodriguez said that he was unaware about any characteristics of other company and that his team had arrangements for three years. However, the carmaker did not disclose the terms, but had an initial agreement of $400 million with Cloud9 in 2019. As per Forbes, BMW will pay a low seven digit amount per year to every team to become the most expensive sports partners.
In addition to content sharing and involvement in social media platforms, BMW will also be integrated with immobilization on every team’s uniform that will provide the teams from respective orgs with personalized team-branded vehicles to go to events. BMW’s Ponvika clarified that “We know we’re going to have a reason to enjoy BMW when the time comes and we’re going to be their first brand!”
