Business opportunities for an Esports Club. Sponsorship

The first thing that we must take into account in an esports club is that an organization of this nature cannot live only on the prizes it obtains as a result of its participation in professional competitions. Therefore, it must prepare a complete catalogue of products and services that enable sufficient sources of income to be activated that help guarantees its survival in the medium and long term.

In my opinion, there are many opportunities that an esports club has to generate business, especially considering that the sector still has many elements to explore and it only discovers new and interesting formulas that allow making previously unheard of business models.

But let’s not forget that practically everything happens to build a community around the brand, a mass of fans who not only demonstrate their sympathy for the club but also leave succulent cash on hand to continue moving the wheel of profitability. Again, we must resort to good advice in marketing and business development that offers answers to the continuous progress in a market as dynamic as the one that operates within the field of esports.

So starting from this base, I am going to detail the different business opportunities that an esports club has at its disposal at present, not without first indicating that I am going to divide every one of these opportunities into independent articles or entries to be able to approach everything in greater depth.

These are the possibilities that an esports club can exploit:

• Sponsorships
• Broadcasting rights
• Merchandising
• Commercial exploitation of its channels, broadcasting platforms.
• Training and Education
• Consultancy

And I will address in this article precisely what is undoubtedly the gateway to economic sustainability in the medium and long term of an esports club. The first option of many and especially one of the highest level of demand will present for the members of the club’s marketing department.

Sponsorships

To properly activate the different relationship models between the club and the different brands that make up the organization’s target audience, several aspects must be taken into account, which I list below:

1.- Professionalism

The club must demonstrate a professionalized management of each of the areas that comprise it. Only in this way can it be in a position to build a lasting relationship with its sponsors, since professionalized management is synonymous with long-term survival and decision-making support on an objective and well-argued basis.

Capturing the attention of brands is not easy, and mainly if the club’s gaze is focused on representative brands with high added value. How the club manages information, and its resources are essential to determine if it will be an excellent travel companion on a journey that will present many challenges and uncertainty so that proper preparation will be the best business card than a club esports can give to your future partner.

2.- Market and social media

The club must demonstrate extensive knowledge of the market it is targeting and must also have qualified information on as many variables as possible to explain to the sponsor that thanks to this knowledge they can design well-structured campaigns and actions based on reliable indicators.

Regarding social media and from an amateur community point of view, it is not enough to reach a reasonable number of users, but rather a quality criterion must prevail that must translate into a new relationship and level of interaction. It would help if you also had tools that allow you to contrast and analyze the effectiveness of the messages that the club publishes to determine the actions that may have the best result for the sponsor.

We must remember that a sponsor not only seeks to transmit a brand image but also seeks to develop business and obtain an economic return to all the trust placed in the club. A diverse and well-qualified community is the ideal starting point to generate business opportunities that can meet the expectations of the sponsor.

Functional analysis of the market to which the sponsor is directed is essential to determine the degree of satisfaction that a relationship model can achieve that must be based on the correct alignment of objectives and capabilities. This social mass that regularly follows the club must present the sponsor with enough attractions so that a fruitful and lasting collaboration can be considered.

3.- Full integration between sponsor and club

In a long-term relationship, the integration between the sponsor and sponsored must be absolute, and the bases must be established to facilitate communication and good understanding to offer the best version of a collaboration model that must go beyond logos in a photocall.

Both organizations must work as a single team and must be able to analyze information to make decisions and provide the strategy with the necessary flexibility, taking into account the versatility that markets continually show.

The sponsor should note the interest the club has in meeting its expectations, a benefit that translates into a constant report that helps to properly guide every one of the actions they want to carry out.

4.- Well defined business objectives

Business objectives must be set to have a starting point on which to build the relationship model. The club must be able to analyze and study the sponsor’s activity and business very well to interpret its expectations correctly.

We must bear in mind that in a sponsorship agreement, there are more and more elements of a variable nature subject to the achievement of specific objectives. Therefore, if a good part of the remuneration has this determining factor, the best thing will be to be able to design a set of goals that are realistic and achievable, always within guidelines that meet the expectations of the sponsor.

The indicators or KPIs must be designed taking into account also that the different actions and campaigns should not only be aimed at fans or the community but also the possibility of another target audience should be considered, for example, publishers, technology companies, investors, etc.

5.- Contents prepared according to well-defined criteria

If the esports club can work in good harmony with the sponsor, it will be able to produce much better targeted and high added value content with clear messages that can efficiently reach the audience. Branded content will, therefore, be one of the elements that will begin to make the difference between a traditional sponsorship program and a new, much more productive relationship model.

A series of instruments must also be established to measure whether these contents have a good acceptance or if, on the contrary, they do not connect with the target audience. Technology again plays a fundamental role in providing useful information to make decisions and readjust the message so that it can achieve the expected results.

6.- Differentiation between the sponsor and its competition

If the club shows the sponsor a clear intention to offer solutions that differentiate its proposals from those of its competition, then it will have won many integers to capture the attention of brands and companies towards its organization.

And is that achieving a clear differentiation from the competition is and will be an aspiration that no sponsor wants to give up. Achieving good results in this sense will strengthen the relationship, but getting to that point will not be accessible if you do not have proper monitoring and management skills that allow you to compare the results with those of the competition.

The esports club will have to identify the elements that make it possible to differentiate the sponsor from other brands and for this, the technology that will provide the necessary data that facilitate a thorough analysis of the possibilities that can be identified and can be brought into play again apply in the environment in which the collaboration framework will operate.

7.- Club values

One of the most relevant components in a sponsorship relationship at present is that of demonstrating a clear implication with the values ​​that are understood to be promoted by organizations that, as in the case of esports clubs, reach such a large and significant mass of fans.

I have already spoken about the orientation towards values ​​in another article on this blog. Still, I want to highlight that beyond a social objective more typical of NGOs and other organizations (which assume a well-defined role in this regard), in the case of sponsorship, It should make a special focus on clearly showing an attitude of respect towards the criteria that mark the evolution of society, thereby transmitting a clear message that both club and sponsor are in line with what is understood from a social perspective by a position and a responsible attitude.