The Automotive Industry in Esports

In the upcoming and highly anticipated game, Cyberpunk 2077, luxury automotive manufacturer, Porsche features prominently, allowing players to navigate the game’s open world in the 911 Turbo.

We decided to take a dive into the Automotive industry’s involvement in the wider esports industry. Only including official sponsorships with teams, tournaments or special events like The Esports Awards, but excluding motorsports esports.

Overall, the involvement of new automotive brands has been slower than the other industries we’ve looked at, but these brands have expanded their esports involvement much more.

One example is BMW. Since their sponsorship of the EU LCS Finals in 2017 (now LEC), BMW has transitioned to only looking at team sponsorships, currently sponsoring a whopping 5 global esports organisations at the same time, including a regional partnership with paiN Gaming.

Another notable brand in the space is Mercedes-Benz who started with a sponsorship of DreamLeague Season 7 and has doubled-down on event sponsorships. They partnered with ESL in almost 15 events spanning across 3 years and the LPL since 2018. Mercedes-Benz has not shied away from teams though, partnering with 2 organisations, SK Gaming, Royal Never Give Up, and Gen.G

Among the 9 brands who have had more than 1 partnership in the space, only 2 have not decided to try out both esports tournaments and team partnerships (Hyundai and Renault).

Interestingly, Nissan was likely the first brand to have looked at esports in their marketing strategies, working with Team Curse back in 2013 on a campaign. However, as it wasn’t a formal sponsorship, it has not been included in the list.

As a brand, you are able to search through what existing partnerships your competitors have within gaming and esports according. This is done by going to search and filtering partnerships according to your industry category or a specific competitor of your choice.

Previously, we've covered the telecomms and banking industries in a similar graph, check them out here.