By Alexander Lee • July 26, 2024 •
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Ivy Liu
Three weeks into the inaugural Esports World Cup, which wraps up on August 25, the jury is out on whether the tournament is living up to the hype to this point. Despite the uncertainty, sponsors reminiscent of PepsiCo and Mastercard think that the Esports World Cup’s marketing price extends a long way previous the tournament’s viewership metrics.
The Esports World Cup kicked off on July 3 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, featuring a file-breaking $60 million prize pool and competitions in in model esports reminiscent of “League of Legends” and “Counter-Strike.” Since then, precisely how correct the tournament’s viewership has been is a subject of who you inquire.
The Esports World Cup has certainly exceeded the viewership numbers build up last one year by its predecessor, Gamers8, with sensible viewership growing by nearly 8 p.c, according to authentic EWC accomplice Esports Charts. On the other hand, some observers maintain pointed out that the tournament’s sensible viewership numbers had been decrease than other tentpole gaming and esports occasions reminiscent of Games Done Instant, an annual speedrunning gathering, or the League of Legends World Championship.
No complaints
Arguably, the sponsors’ opinions topic most when it involves the Esports World Cup’s future advertising prospects. To this point none of the tournament’s sponsors appears to be like complaining about the tournament’s viewership numbers, whether or now not they’ve exceeded expectations.
“Our partnership with Esports World Cup has introduced us closer to millions of esports fans,” talked about Mastercard evp of global sponsorships and partnership units Pernilla Winberg Baptist. “During our first week of broadcast, there used to be a height viewership of two.4 million fans, with 36 million hours watched. That’s incredible.”
When reached for touch upon the tournament’s performance to this point, an Esports World Cup representative pointed to a July 9 e-newsletter by Esports World Cup Foundation CEO Ralf Reichert, who talked about that he used to be cheerful with the engagement and viewership spherical the tournament’s first week.
“We will find a plot to portion the first viewership stats with you very soon, but for now, I’m comfortable to portion that we’ve already clocked over 50% of the total hours watched when put next to last one year’s precursor,” Reichert wrote.
Brands maintain certainly taken demonstrate of the excitement. Over the previous month, the Esports World Cup has announced a veritable who’s-who of main non-endemic sponsors, including PepsiCo, Mastercard, Unilever, Amazon and Adidas. Instead of looking to extra without prolong considered stats reminiscent of viewership, producers including PepsiCo and Mastercard informed Digiday that their focal point with their sponsorships of the tournament is extra long-timeframe.
“[Viewership is] a vital metric, but it’s now not the key deciding ingredient on whether right here’s something that we’re going to pursue in the future or now not,” talked about Karim El Fiqi, svp and CMO of PepsiCo AMESA. “The on-flooring engagement that you just maintain gotten with the buyers, the equity that you just obtain with the gamers onsite and then your positioning in this ardour point in the site is the price of that in the long-timeframe.”
In addition to selling its merchandise at the Esports World Cup, Pepsi views sponsoring the tournament as a model to regain its foot into the door of the many other Saudi gaming and esports tasks, including the esports leagues bustle by ESL/FACEIT Community and the gaming city in Qiddiya.
“You perceive all about the Saudi Imaginative and prescient 2030 — how they’re trying to continue building the nation, but additionally diversify the economy and the sources of income,” El Fiqi talked about. “As PepsiCo, we’ve been a participant in Saudi for years, so we maintain a feature to play in supporting this 2030 vision.”
Strengthening its presence in the Center East is a central aim of Mastercard’s sponsorship of the Esports World Cup, too.
“The Center East is a hasty growing gaming market that’s been getting rather a lot of consideration,” Winberg Baptist talked about. “And as a world ticket, we perceive that we want to fulfill our buyers the build they are.”
For a few of the sponsors of this one year’s Esports World Cup, there are additional intangible, yet very relevant, attainable benefits to partnering with the Riyadh-primarily primarily based tournament. In spite of everything, the Esports World Cup is deeply intertwined with the Saudi Arabian executive, and supporting initiatives reminiscent of the Esports World Cup would maybe well subtly toughen a ticket’s presence in the dwelling.
“There’s a heavy involvement of the executive or executive entities in this, and I think firms that feature in that dwelling are very cognizant of keeping them on aspect and being considered to be supportive,” talked about Malph Minns,