Militaries across the world are heading towards esports for advertising and outreach. Its quite understandable considering the fact that esport attracts a large chunk of millennials and teenagers. And the same onlookers are the target audience for military organisations obviously for hiring resolve. In the recent past, US Navy have signed an Overwatch and a Call of Duty lineup as well to facilitate their outreach. They had also collaborated with American esport organisation compLexity earlier this year.
Evil Geniuses, another US-based esport organisation will host tryouts for Counter-Strike players to aboard the Navy roster. The detailed information regarding the format and schedule is yet to be unveiled. However, Navy’s CS: GO team will premier at TwitchCon later this year. Further, Navy will also sponsor BYOC at DreamHack Dallas in May 2020. US Navy’s another novel yet strategic partnership is with live streaming giant Twitch. The latter shall produce a mini web series highlighting resemblances between gamers and sailors.
In 2017, Danish organisation Astralis prompted Danish forces to target esport enthusiasts citing the similarities amongst gamers and armed officers. As the Danish military worked upon enhancing their footprints within the gaming industry, the organisation received twice the applications. US Navy also announced that it would move a larger chunk of its advertising budget from cable television towards streaming platforms like YouTube and Twitch. Other than millennial brands, even militaries consider gaming and esport as a model medium to advertise & promote.
