Electronic Sports League (ESL) announced a long-term partnership with Mercedes-Benz, a leader in the automotive industry on a global scale.
The collaboration between the two companies will begin with the ESL One Hamburg. The latter is the largest Dota 2 tournament in Europe and features the whopping $1 million prize pool. At a later date, the partnership will be extended across multiple tournaments worldwide.
At the time of writing, it is still unknown what kind of incentives ESL will get from the partnership with Mercedes-Benz. Still, it was confirmed that the automobile giant is focused on expanding its presence in the e-sports market.
In a special statement, the Vice President Marketing at Mercedes-Benz, Dr Jens Thiemer, said that the company has been monitoring the development of the e-sports gaming segment lately. Now, company officials were convinced that their involvement in the e-sports industry would be beneficial as far as new target groups and new contacts were concerned.
Mercedes-Benz has been actively seeking prominent partnerships with impactful providers of gaming-oriented products and services. Rumor has it that the company was in negotiations with Riot Games and it was interested in becoming a 2017 LoL World Championship sponsor. However, with the start date approaching, such a partnership is not likely to be established, or at least not this year.
The Hamburg Dota 2 Major will be hosted by ESL at the Barclaycard Arena. The event will run from October 28th through October 29th. Eight of the best teams from around the world will compete against each other with the aim of securing early points for the International 8.
Ralf Reichert, CEO of ESL, said that the partnership with Mercedes-Benz was a major step towards providing fans and players with exciting mobility solutions and taking the e-sports to the next level.
The entrance of the luxury car manufacturer into the e-sports segment comes to confirm the considerable progress the industry has made recently. Now, companies operating outside the sector, regard it as a powerful marketing tool and a potential source of stable revenues.
Market analysts remind about the partnership between the team Astralis and Audi and do not miss to mention that McDonald’s has become a major sponsor of the StarCraft II World Championship Series. The majority of people familiar with the current market conditions agree that such kind of partnerships will become more and more common in near future.
