The 4 M’s of Esports Branding
Mr. Beast, the wildly popular YouTuber known for his videos involving outsized pranks and giving away eye-watering amounts of money, recently announced that he was moving towards ownership of an esports team for League of Legends. Immediate excitement followed, considering his online following (46 million on YouTube at the time of writing) dwarfs the North American League of Legends community (~2.2 million active ranked accounts according to op.gg)
As he begins his journey into esports development, issues of branding will be at the forefront of his archipelago of brands and products. Teams, historically, have had a slapdash, lackluster, and often last-minute approach to branding as a team. Names like Complexity and Curse Gaming were thought of by (and I mean this kindly) gamers who slept through high school and didn’t attend college. Merchandise was thrown together on Springtee or Inked, graphic design was contracted out to fans or friends, and no consistent naming trend among teams has taken precedence, even in the era of franchising.
However, as time goes on, observers can see a pattern in esports companies that build and maintain successful followings. Those with the most money have the most salary budget to work with, which leads to better players, which leads to better results domestically and internationally, which then gains more teams. This pattern can be broken into laws: the four M’s of esports branding. All great esports brands are the following.
1. Memorable. Players must be able to remember the spelling, logo, colors, and identity of great teams. In a time of globalism, this name should be easy to spell and say for even international fans, many of whom might not have a perfect grasp on English. In cases like this, teams like G2, TSM, and T1 have strong branding that is easy to spell, easy to say, and easy to remember. While strings of letters are less than interesting, currently teams are known colloquially by their team tags that display next to player names in game. When creating your Esports team, work backwards from this tag. Some quick thoughts: using “gaming,” “team,” and “esports” in the name of an esports team was fine 10 years ago, but visually and verbally teams should mature past this. It’s redundant, considering the popularity of large esports organizations, and unnecessary. Team Liquid could rebrand to Liquid without any loss of brand recognition while remaining stylish, memorable, and unique.
2. Material. Visually, players should have a mental image to lock on to. When you think of TSM, you imagine the iconic black and white circle logo. Team Liquid has their horse, T1 has the red and white winged T1, and G2 has their samurai helmet. A logo should be easy enough for a child to draw an approximation of, but unique. Examples of great logos would be Gen.G, 100 Thieves, and Cloud9. Compare those to horrific logos like CLG (which is completely unreadable and has no material meaning) Immortals (which appears to have been made in Microsoft paint with a nonsensical and boring color scheme) and JDG (a heavily Chinese name without a clear meaning and an overly complex, poorly designed demon? Monster? Creature?). When working on the logo for an esports organization, do the following. A: hire a professional designer, not your cousin’s girlfriend and B: imagine your new logo on the front of a hoodie. On a keychain. On a coffee cup, or t-shirt, or laptop sticker, or mousepad. Merchandise is the lifeblood of sports organizations. Teams with ugly, unprofessional logos don’t sell merchandise and can’t partner with reputable brands that care about their image. Full stop.
3. Malleable. 100 Thieves, for all of their faults, was designed brand first in order to stylize and popularize esports for general audiences that are interested in apparel and lifestyle first. Their podcast is called The Heist, their headquarters is called The Vault, and every aspect of their brand, from logo, to merchandising, to general partnership and naming strategies is meticulously and professionally crafted. They have designed an organization that can fit any partnership, and type of merchandise, and any situation that it needs to. Esports orgs should follow this example. Logos and names should be able to fit any type of situation cleanly and professionally. 100T is a case study in how broad the partnership opportunities range for esports. While most brands find themselves chasing Nike, Alienware, Logitech, Red Bull, or other brands directly related to esports, Nadeshot found himself partnered with Drake, Scooter Braum, RocketMortgage (home finance and esports; name a more iconic duo) CashApp, and more.
4. Marketable. Teams exist to make money. Esports started for the love of the game, much like, say, The New York Yankees or Walt Disney, but as salaries and expectations have grown, so has the base spending rate of teams. This means that teams rely on partnerships for a large part of their revenue to fund day to day expenses. If a team has a marketable image from the get-go, this streamlines the process and can pique investor and partner interest early. The fix: focus on your target demographic. White and Asian males 18–35 has been a depth well-plumbed by most existing orgs, so bending or adding to that target audience is a surefire way to catch interest and oblique partnerships. This would mean early focus groups on logo, advertisements, colors, and organization image that would catch the attention of people who might not be 21-year-old male competitive gamers.
Sports, and esports by extension, are by definition audience serving forms of entertainment. The goal of a sports organization is to make money through entertainment. Without a strong brand, esports teams will struggle in the future as they try to update their image from a group of teenage boys wanting to go pro to an international brand. Esports is a global industry, and that requires global thinking when instituting, growing, and marketing that company to potential fans, and therefore customers, around the world.
