On October 9, the S13 League of Legends World Finals officially began. This year's S tournament has 22 teams, divided into LPL (China), LCK (Korea), LEC (Europe), LCS (North America) and other 9 divisions.
Before the start of the S13 Global Finals, major brands began to act around "sponsorship". According to statistics, the S13 Global Finals has a total of 202 sponsorships, in addition to the change of sponsor brands, each region has a popular sponsor category, in some regions, 3C hardware and peripherals are more favored, while in other regions, fast-moving consumer goods brands such as food and beverages, as well as digital collectibles have become mainstream sponsors.
As demonstrated at the S13 event, there is a huge variety of sponsorships in the esports space. In this article, Gyro E-sports conducts a multi-angle inventory and analysis around the S13 event itself and the brand sponsorship of major e-sports clubs, and will summarize the changes and trends of brand sponsorship of this year's S S Tournament.
Sponsorship drops, women exit brands?
League of Legends and Riot official website information shows that this year's S13 Global Finals won a total of 9 brand sponsorships in the Chinese market and overseas markets, compared with the 12 sponsors of the S12 Global Finals, the number has decreased slightly.
In terms of the Chinese market, in addition to the consistency of global partners with overseas markets, regional differences also bring differences in sponsors, such as official partners in China (JD.com, Mosleyan) mainly for the domestic consumer market, through sponsorship of local LPL competitions and global finals, attracting young consumers and enhancing the brand's youthful image. Durex is a new brand this year, becoming the first gender health brand to sponsor esports events.
In fact, global brands are also focusing on the Chinese e-sports market, such as special cooperative brands (KFC, Intel), which have been partners in the LPL division for many years. The reason for this is that the voice of the LPL competition area is gradually increasing globally, its influence is increasing, and its spending power is also increasing. Penguin data shows that in the past year, 87.3% of Chinese esports users spent on esports.
The same is true for overseas markets, such as Prime Gaming becoming an overseas regional partner brand without supporting China; In the domestic gaming chair market, where local brands such as "Aofeng" eat most of the market share, SECRET LAB did not choose to become a global partner, but aimed at Europe, the United States and other regions.
In addition, compared with Chinese brands, the number of overseas consumer brands is small, and telecom and network "technical services" brands have begun to increase - such as AWS, Cisco, Verizon. The cooperation between esports and technical service brands will enhance and ensure the landing of the event on the one hand, and on the other hand, by exposing and demonstrating the brand's technical capabilities in the event, it will help the brand to get more business hosting of top e-sports events. This may be one of the important factors for technology service brands to increase their sponsorship of esports.
Although the number of sponsors decreased slightly compared to last year, the sponsorship appeal of the event did not decrease, and brands are increasingly moving towards long-term cooperation. For example, Mercedes-Benz and League of Legends will extend the cooperation until 2025, and the two sides have developed a deep binding around the event, including creating championship rings, trophies and so on. Financial brand Mastercard has also been working with League of Legends for 5 years.
Some types of brands are starting to pull out, with two consecutive sponsors of beauty brand Lancôme and last year's global partner luxury brand Tiffany & Co. (including LV, which previously sponsored the S9 event), which has failed to forge a long-term partnership with the event — and has not switched sponsorship to esports clubs. This may be related to the gender and consumption habits of users, and the current consumption types of e-sports users are mainly concentrated in: virtual props, physical peripherals, team player peripherals and on-site viewing.
180 sponsorships, new category brands accelerate the pace of sponsorship
In the 2023 season, 22 teams in 9 divisions generated a total of 180 brand sponsorships, of which teams from four major regions accounted for most of the sponsorship cooperation. 44 in the LPL division; 39 in the LCK division; 21 in the LEC division; There were 39 cases in the LCS division.
Based on the number of sponsors, JDG, the No. 1 seed team in the LPL division, is the most popular team, with as many as 21 sponsored brands. It should be noted that 5 of them are from JD.com's brands, excluding these brands, which are lower than the DFM team in LJL Japan. The reason why DFM teams can get so many brand sponsorships, in addition to being a well-known team in the division, the low amount of sponsorship is an important reason for the favor of brands.
The reason why JD.com has received so much brand sponsorship is largely due to the commercialization ability brought by this year's excellent competition results. This year, JDG won consecutive LPL Spring Championships, MSI Mid-Season Championships and LPL Summer Championships. Before the start of the S race, Durex and OPPO entered into a partnership with JDG.
As the first gender health brand to sponsor e-sports, Durex has made great efforts to deploy e-sports this year, on the one hand, sponsoring top events such as LPL, MSI, and S competitions, and playing e-sports marketing by combining products with e-sports black words such as "Baoqi". On the other hand, it partnered with the teams that made it to the S13 Global Finals to further build brand awareness among the esports fan base.
It is worth noting that the arrival of e-sports events at the Asian Games has also been successfully held, which has also brought new opportunities for e-sports sponsorship. Dairy companies and other brands that used to sponsor traditional sports have sponsored e-sports clubs and the Asian Games. For example, Yili became a sponsor of JDG and BLG this year, and actively collaborated on esports during the Asian Games.
In the brand category, the most sponsored brands are still closely related to the industry, out of 180 sponsorships, 3C hardware sponsorship a total of 26, involving 21 brands; These companies produce computers, computer hardware, and more, including night elves, ROGs, aliens, rescuers, etc. The second place was peripheral brands, with a total of 21 cases and 12 brands.
Esports clubs in all regions have sponsored brands in the categories "Computer & 3C Hardware" and "Peripherals", and some teams have even signed multiple brands on the same track. In the past, in sports events or other brands, sponsors were often exclusive, so as to ensure that the interests of sponsors were maximized. Take the DRX team in the LCK Division, for example, Logitech and HyperX are both sponsors; THE LNG TEAM IN THE LPL DIVISION ALSO HAS TWO PERIPHERAL SPONSORS, ZOWIE GEAR AND CHERRY XTRFY.
This phenomenon is not surprising in the esports space, and the reason for this is that only esports have a sponsorship environment for such brands. The relationship between 3C hardware and peripherals and esports teams is critical to the development and marketing of their products. At the same time, in the case of differences in the influence of esports clubs, brands tend to prioritize the top teams.
Logitech became the most popular sponsor of this year's League of Legends event, and the peripheral brand is the sponsor of 7 teams in the S13 World Finals. Beverage brands are the second most active brand type, with Red Bull and Monster sponsoring four and three teams respectively. In addition, the sponsorship of streaming media is also increasing, including AfreecaTV and Twitch have sponsored 2 teams.
Looking at the overall sponsorship of e-sports, in addition to 3C hardware & peripherals, clothing, and drinks, the proportion of medical health and finance is gradually increasing, even surpassing automobile and food brands. Data shows that 75% of e-sports players generally have different degrees of occupational diseases, with the acceleration of e-sports sports, health care brands that used to pay attention to traditional sports began to layout e-sports, and e-sports also began to pay attention to player health and promote a healthy game lifestyle, which also made the cooperation between the two become normal.
Financial brands, on the other hand, aim at the spending power of young users, and quickly reach the new generation by investing in e-sports and sponsorship, allowing users to use services such as debit cards and fast payment launched by brands.
In terms of the club's "sponsorship and absorption capacity", there are multiple dimensions involved. First of all, there is the attention brought by this year's results, such as JDG's sponsorship of 21 brands after winning three consecutive championships. Secondly, clubs with strong historical backgrounds are also the focus of the brand's attention, including the T1 team of LCK Korea and the TL team of LCS North America, both of which are far ahead in attracting brand sponsorship with their influence (and certain tournament strength).
In addition, e-sports clubs that can get high attention from users have also performed well in attracting brand sponsorship, and the more classic is the G2 team in the LEC European division, regardless of the annual event results, the G2 sponsorship brand has remained stable. This is clearly what the sponsors want.
The "blue ocean market" in the wild card division is also attracting an influx of brands, and in Vietnam, Latin America, Japan and other regions, the brands of sponsoring teams include both local and global. Due to the lack of competitiveness of the event, the sponsorship fee of the wild card team is more cost-effective than the sponsorship amount of the top team. At the same time, the e-sports market in Latin America, India, and Southeast Asia has grown rapidly in recent years, and major brands are accelerating their layout to gain market share at the top. This also led to commercial growth for wildcard teams.
A new landscape of esports sponsorship
But it's important to be wary that brands are starting to become cautious about sponsoring esports. On the one hand, because the rising cost of sponsorship has exceeded the expectations of many small and medium-sized brands; On the other hand, the primary benefit of sponsoring esports is traffic exposure, not product purchases, and brands looking for real-time ROI cannot see fruitful sponsorship benefits.
This has also created the pattern of today's sponsorship market in the field of e-sports, with the growth of influence, the volume of sponsors has also put forward certain requirements, at the same time, the two parties are more inclined to long-term cooperation, through long-term accumulation, the brand in the e-sports user group to portray brand recognition, cultivate future consumers.
The "one-of-a-kindness" of brand sponsorship has also begun to become more obvious, and although 3C hardware & peripheral brands are fiercely competitive, they are mainly concentrated in the direction of clubs, and the sales of products are driven by the use of players. Taking car companies as an example, with Mercedes-Benz occupying most of the esports market, sponsorship from other car brands has begun to decrease. BMW stopped sponsoring esports clubs altogether last December. Mercedes-Benz also quickly replenished BMW's previous market, becoming a car sponsor for T1 and other clubs.
For profit-seeking brands, sponsoring content creators becomes a more cost-effective way to invest. There is a perception in the market that content creators are better able to gain viewers' attention than competition-focused esports teams, and have subjective bold expressions to meet the needs of brands in product sales growth. The lower cooperation price also allows brands of different sizes to participate.
Content creators' content quality, flexibility, and price advantage are becoming competitors for clubs to attract sponsorship. Many esports clubs have also noticed this trend and started to start guild businesses and sign content creators. Founded in 2019, Team LOUD (the LLL team for the S13 World Finals) was the first club to reach 1 billion views on YouTube. The club has signed up a large number of content creators and monetized multiple channels such as live streaming and brand partnerships.
Nowadays, more esports clubs are beginning to expand the "guild business", enhance the overall influence of the brand, and achieve profitability in both brand advertising and user payment.
Epilogue:
The analysis of brand sponsorship in the S13 Global Finals shows that hardware and peripheral brands closely related to games and e-sports are still the mainstream, but at the same time, e-sports sponsorship is becoming more diversified, and the proportion of uncommon brand types in the e-sports field in previous years has begun to increase, not only consumption, but also brands with the nature of "life service platform" - including medical health, delivery, shopping, travel, etc. - also hope to enter the young group through e-sports. Of course, some brands are starting to quit.
Esports is not only a digital entertainment method for young people, but also a popular way to promote brands. Nowadays, more and more brands are entering the industry to promote their products to a younger audience. Some of these brands sponsor headline events, while others prefer targeted collaborations with teams. Among them, the breadth and depth of cooperation between brands and e-sports have progressed, and marketing gameplay is constantly escalating.