MUNICH: The BMW Group announced the expansion of its involvement in the esports world, including the launch of a new international platform and partnerships with five of the world’s leading esports organisations, including Cloud9 (US), Fnatic (UK), FunPlus Phoenix (China), G2 Esports (Germany) and T1 (South Korea).
These new collaborations will include content development across social media, information sharing, and technology transfer with its engineers and designers on hardware and software.
BMW Motorsport is also continuing its simulated (sim) racing activities to build on success from 2019.
The collaboration between BMW and the esports teams is very wide-ranging and goes far beyond mere sponsorship. Among other things, BMW shares the knowledge and expertise of its engineers and designers, to enable the development of hardware and software products perfectly tailored to gamers’ needs.
Cloud9, Fnatic, FunPlus Phoenix, G2 Esports and T1 comprise up to 200 players competing in tournaments globally including League of Legends, Dota 2, Fortnite, and more.
Typically, these events are hosted in large multi-purpose venues, with thousands of fans in attendance and millions more watching and engaging online. BMW will create unique content on various social media platforms such as Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitch under the umbrella of the #UnitedInRivalry hashtag.
The BMW commitment also includes the provision of official team vehicles. Among these, each organization will have a team car featuring a custom livery with striking style and each organization’s logo. These eye-catching liveries, developed jointly by the teams and BMW, form another key element of this close partnership.
“Joining forces with the best teams in the world, we aim to use our design and innovation skills to help shape the discipline in the long term,” said Jens Thiemer, senior vice president consumer and brand for BMW. “Our esports involvement is an important milestone providing, for the first time, a new intersectionality with a dynamic and fast-growing community. We consider esports a promising, growing addition to our marketing activities.”
“We’re thrilled to expand our partnership with BMW to the global front and continue to uphold shared pillars of excellence and peak performance,” said Jack Entienne, CEO and Co-Founder of Cloud9. BMW initially joined forces with Cloud9 in March 2019. “We welcome the outstanding teams that we’ll work alongside to drive competitive excellence forward with BMW.”
