Why E LEAGUE Being Pulled In Germany Is Ridiculous | THE NEXT LEVEL 037

E LEAGUE REMOVED FROM GERMAN TV

Next Level Take: I’ll start with this qualifier which is unfortunately needed nowadays: I am not condoning senseless violence in any form and this is not a political statement whatsoever.

During Turner’s Press event for this weekend’s culmination of E LEAGUE Season 1, a little tidbit was revealed: German TV Channel ProSieben MAXX cancelled this weekend’s Finals showing due to the recent events in Munich.

Why would a huge media company pull the biggest eSports event to happen on TV the weekend of the Finals? Because apparently the Munich shooter liked Counter-Strike. CNBC even ran this ridiculous headline:

“Munich gunman, a fan of violent video games, rampage killers, had planned attack for a year”

Well guess what, the killer also had a stash of books on shooting rampages and was a fan of Norwegian mass murderer Anders Breivik. It’s unfortunate that facts get in the way of passionate debate but let’s be clear on several points. The amount of times that video games gets associated with violence is on par with “The Catcher In The Rye” being caught in the possession of murderers. I’m fairly certain that book hasn’t been banned in US schools.

Let’s also please put the “video games cause people to be violent” theory to bed once and for all. Some research:

• 2013 University of Glasgow: Using the UK Millenium Cohort Study, which tracked 11,000 UK children children’s development over several years, the researchers were unable to find any correlation between time spent playing video games
• 2014 US Journal of Communication: Not only found that there was no link between violent media and behavior but also questioned the methodology of previous studies suggesting the two were related
• 2015 Psychology of Popular Media Culture: Playing violent video games is no more likely to be damaging to young children’s behavior than those considered harmless

Are we good now?

If not, I’ll leave you with one last statistic. I analyzed the CDC’s research of deaths in the US in 2013:

VEGAS GETS ANOTHER ESPORTS EVENT

Next Level Take: Another eSports event is coming to Las Vegas after the recent EVO Championship and the League of Legends Spring LCS Event. Ultimate Media Ventures is partnering with the SLS Hotel and Casino to bring the “Battle on the Strip” eSports tournament to the city this year.

The “Battle on the Strip” tournament will be broadcast from SLS’s venue The Foundry, although no game publishers or broadcast partners have been named yet.

Vegas baby, Vegas.

BRANDS

ADIDAS SPONSORS FIFA MLS ALL-STAR GAME

Next Level Take: Another big name Non-Endemic Brand sponsor invests in eSports with Adidas sponsoring a FIFA 16 tournament during this weekend’s MLS All-Star game.

The astonishing thing is that this is Adidas’ first foray into eSports in the US. They were actually one of the earliest sponsors in eSports going back 7 years with 4 investments via Copenhagen Wolves, Mousesports, SK Gaming and ESL:

Coincidentally, I wrote about Ultimate Media Ventures Apparel line back in THE NEXT LEVEL 005 and that a major Sports brand would enter eSports.

It’s going to happen.

AT&T PARTNERS WITH EA FOR “MORE THAN A VOTE” CHALLENGE

Next Level Take: Looking into Adidas’ eSports sponsorship I uncovered this promotion between AT&T and EA — somewhat shocking both of these deals haven’t been made more public.

The MLS All-Star game has a fan voting mechanism and the 11th player, a forward, will be determined by AT&T/EA SPORTS “More Than a Vote” Challenge. A player will receive a vote every time a fan scores a goal while playing FIFA 16 using a forward on the MLS All-Star ballot. The forward with the most eligible goals will earn the final spot on the All-Star Fan XI.

Another example of a major Non-Endemic Brand investing in eSports and Telco garnering a large share between Comcast, T-Mobile, Bell Canada and now AT&T.

IMMORTALS WEARS MEUNDIES

Next Level Take: So awesome. Yes a $10M venture funded “vertically integrated, direct-to-consumer basics company” sponsored an eSports team.

Regardless of what Immortals does with Me Undies going forward this video is just amazing:

While that’s a great win for Immortals, I’d be a little careful in making statements like this from their CEO Noah Winston:

“In eSports, sponsorships can range anywhere from a few thousand dollars a month if you just want something like social posting, all the way up to high-six, low-seven-figures”

I’ll say this, there is NO WAY I would recommend to a Brand Client that they spend a few thousand for posts and over $1M for team sponsorship. I’m not sure if Noah is referring to his own team’s pricing but Immortals has a way to go to catch other North American team’s social presence at least on Twitter:

• 1,710K OpTic Gaming
• 713K Team SoloMid
• 315K Cloud 9
• 187K Luminosity Gaming
• 122K compLexity Gaming
• 69K Immortals

At this pace, we will easily exceed 50+ Non-Endemic Brands spending in eSports in 2016.