Gfinity Appoints Strive To Boost Esports

Strive Sponsorship, the sport and entertainment marketing consultancy founded by former Team Sky head of partnerships Malph Minns, has added its first rightsholder to a growing roster of clients following a competitive pitch process.

Strive will advise Gfinity, an AIM listed electronic sports (eSports) business that hosts leagues and events, on how to monetise the rapidly expanding global community of competitive gamers through sponsorship.

With over 226 million fans regularly engaging with eSports, and growth predicted to reach 345 million by the end of 2019, Gfinity’s ambition is to become the leading promoter of eSports events globally.

Specifically Strive will help Gfinity refine its commercial proposition, identify value and build a comprehensive rights schedule as well as build a narrative that articulates the engagement opportunities for brands to connect to the millennial audience that eSports attracts.

Gfinity launched the UK’s first permanent eSports Arena in Fulham, London in early 2015, attracting over 58.5 million online views of its events and a community of over 500,000 regular gamers.

Malph Minns, managing director of Strive Sponsorship, said: “We are really excited to be working with Gfinity in the fast evolving eSports space. We have been keeping abreast of the developments in eSports for a number of years now, but with a real focus in the last 12 months.”

“We believe eSports has reached a tipping point and now offers brands a new opportunity to reach a huge, and growing, highly engaged millennial fan base. eSports is the newest passion point available to sponsors to connect with audiences in a meaningful way and Strive Sponsorship is perfectly positioned to help them do that.”

CEO of Gfinity, Neville Upton, added: “We were immediately impressed with Strive’s knowledge of, and passion for, the evolving eSports ecosystem and fan base.”

“Although developing at speed, eSports is still at a relatively early stage in its lifecycle. This can obviously present challenges through misconceptions, but it also offers up exciting opportunities for brands to create the future.

“There is a lot unique to eSports, but equally there is a lot we can learn and apply from traditional sponsorship platforms like sport. Strive’s first-hand experience of helping rightsholders create value for partners whilst delivering a commercial return, is absolutely the expertise we require right now.”