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What is your opinion about sports teams buying and/or associating with esports teams?

Palmeiras SerieB·6/2/2016, 7:30:05 PM·3 votes·1,610 views

I noticed, a little late, that an european LCS team, Elements, has been bought by a known german soccer club, Schalke 04.It's not the first time something like this happened in esports, but now it reached a major region in League of Legends competitive scene.

I have no data about other competitive games, but as far as I know, in League of Legends it happened for the first time in turkish scene, when Beşiktaş Jimnastik Kulübü (BJK) bought the team Aces High and started competing in the 2015 turkish winter split. That caught some attention due to good results: they won the split and later the IWCI of the same year.

After the success of the turkish team, some soccer teams in Brazil tried to do the same. Santos Futebol Clube started a partnership with Team Dexterity to play in 2015 Brazilian Challenger Circuit (second split). On League of Legends it was a failure, but the team partnership still working in other games like CS:GO, Call of Duty and Heroes of the Storm.

Another soccer team, Clube do Remo, started a partnership with a challenger team in Brazil, Team Brave. The team has renamed to Remo Brave and is currently competing in the 2016 Brazilian Challenger Circuit (second split).

But from brazilian challengers and turkish pro-scene to the LCS level is a very huge leap. And it just happened few weeks ago. Schalke 04 is competing on the summer split of LCS.

  • So, do you think more sports teams are going to try to dive in the world of esports?
  • As far as I know, soccer isn't popular in North America. Do you think another sports (Baseball? American Football? Basketball?) teams could develop some interest in esports?
  • What about scenes like Korea and China, whose teams are already owned by big groups and corporations?

Thanks for any answers, and sorry for eventual grammar mistakes.

27 Comments

TurquoiseYoshi6/2/2016, 7:44:28 PM3 votes

There are already major sports figures and owners buying LCS teams, even though the teams aren't under the banner (NRG is owned by 1+ Sacramento Kings owner and Shaq, Rick Fox owns Echo Fox). I could see other people doing the same, like Mark Cuban and possibly the Dolphins owner (I saw somewhere that they had considered buying an LCS team).

Ale non è male6/2/2016, 11:11:44 PM2 votes

I am against it, to be honest, unless it is becomes the only way to get financial security for the teams

It basically chokes out the traditional esports org from joining in the future LCS since they can't financially compete once the big sport players eventually enter the market, and it would basically be unfair to deny to what represent the spine and the underwood of the esport competition the chance to make it to the top of the same competiton, and to use CS/LCS as a springboard to spread their brand throughout to boost their activity in the other esports they are involved in (think of multigaming orgs like Fnatic, G2, TSM, C9, Millennium, etc...)

Miror B6/2/2016, 7:58:38 PM1 votes

I'm personally in favor of it. If "esports" really wants to grow bigger than they kinda have to bridge the gap between actual gaming and sports. It's one of the reasons I'm a bit of a fan of s04 in EU right now, as their ceo has openly stated that he wants to treat all of his players (whether it be soccer or LoL) equal and would like to host his team's games in their stadium, making it more like sports where each team has home games/away games.

Corran6/2/2016, 9:27:43 PM1 votes

I'm waiting for the NY Yankees to join the LCS

PhantomGG6/3/2016, 7:25:31 AM1 votes

it makes me think if big people are 2illing to invest than riot nerds to improve the challenger competitive scene