Esports and crypto are two industries that continue to find immediate crossover. Outside of the growing play-to-earn atmosphere, spearheaded by the likes of Axie Infinity, the traditional esports and gaming atmosphere is finding new partnership avenues left and right.
This week, Coinbase expanded it’s growing esports ties by establishing a new partnership with competitive esports org Team Liquid.
Crypto & Esports
The partnership with Team Liquid is a four-year deal that looks to emphasize “the crossover between gaming and crypto-curious audiences,” an undoubtedly growing market. Team Liquid has an online marketplace, which Coinbase will integrate with to enable crypto payments. The pair will also address emerging technology around fan engagement.
Team Liquid CEO and co-owner Steve Arhancet stated that “crypto was new to me once, but once I started reading and watching, I realized that it wasn’t some passing fad — it’s here now, and will be in the future. Together with Coinbase, we hope we can demystify crypto for Team Liquid fans.” Liquid competes primarily in League of Legends, Valorant, and Fortnite.
Coinbase’s first major splash into esports and gaming earlier this year with a partnership with CS:GO organizer BLAST Premier, and then by way of a partnership with powerhouse tournament organizer ESL Gaming. That deal locked in Coinbase brand exposure for key ESL events through the rest of this year and next year. ESL is one of the biggest names in global esports events, and has gradually been unrolling their usual calendar of events – most recently with DreamHack Anaheim. No announcement has been made yet on any sort of Coinbase involvement with DreamHack events, as partners for the Anaheim event have yet to be disclosed.
Additionally, this week’s partnership isn’t Coinbase’s first foray at the organizational level either. The exchange has already partnered with Evil Geniuses and BIG.
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Coinbase has had an up and down start to the month, as the exchange looks to secure more established partners in both traditional sports and in esports and gaming. | Source: NASDAQ: COIN on TradingView.com
Gamification
Partnerships like this one are far from unique, but absolutely worth paying attention to. Elsewhere in the market, Cardano paired up with whitelabel esports platform Rival in recent months. That announcement was released within the Cardano Summit in September.
This year, esports organizations have become increasingly keen on securing crypto exchange partners. In June, crypto exchange FTX signed a massive, first-of-its-kind naming rights deal with esports org TSM, rebranding the org to TSM.FTX. That partnership was one of many substantial sports integrations for FTX, who are shelling out north of $200M over the life of the 10-year deal for TSM’s naming rights.
Gaming and crypto continue to grow, both individually and in tandem, at an exceptional pace.
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