Competitive gaming is an industry built on sponsorships. E-sports attract huge corporations like Nissan and T-mobile, but few have garnered as much attention as adult-film website YouPorn. And now, the company is explaining why it is so happy with its investment in the games industry.
Team YP revealed its new sponsor in early December. Since then, the group participated in the Spanish Gamergy tournament for Valve’s Dota 2 multiplayer online arena battler (or MOBA). YouPorn’s e-sports team finished third at that event. With this strong finish behind them, GamesBeat contacted YouPorn vice president Brad Burns to get an update on Team YP and the company’s feelings toward e-sports. Gaming competitions, like the League of Legends championship event, attracted 32 million online viewers. That’s huge for brands like YouPorn that want to spend their marketing budget to reach large, engaged audiences of young men between the ages of 18 and 34.
“From a gaming perspective [Team YP is] doing really well,” Burns told GamesBeat. “They placed third at their first real tournament. From a business perspective, they are incredibly professional, and we couldn’t be happier.”
The team is in training mode and is preparing for the upcoming seasons of Dota 2, League of Legends (another MOBA), and collectible card game battler Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft. Burns went on to say how well YouPorn’s partnership is going with the team.
A clip of Dota 2 in action:
“We’re beyond happy with our investment,” he said. “We’ve wanted to get into the gaming industry for some time and when the opportunity presented itself we jumped on it. Since then it’s been nothing short of awesome. Team YP is made up of some of the world’s best players, which represents our brand well.”
And that’s what a sponsorship is all about. E-sports is a growing industry with events attracting thousands of in-person attendees and millions of online viewers.
“The gaming industry is booming,” said Burns. “It has been for some time, and it’s only going to get more popular with the advancements in technology. We felt — being an internet-based company — that it made sense to sponsor an e-sports team. Players and fans spend a lot of time on the internet, so visiting YouPorn for them is pretty easy. It’s just a matter of opening up a new browser.”