Vodafone gets into esports, sponsors G2

The world’s second biggest mobile phone carrier entered the esports space today.

British telecommunications company Vodafone, which runs services across the world, has signed a sponsorship deal with G2 Esports. That organization also announced today it had acquired a new Spanish national League of Legends team, which will compete in local Spanish events throughout the year. That team will go by the name G2.Vodafone.

In a press release, Vodafone’s brand director said that esports was a natural avenue for the company to expand to considering that high-speed broadband is the “natural living space” for the industry.

Vodafone is the fourth mobile carrier to get into esports. AT&T was first, sponsoring a Texas e-Sports Association StarCraft 2 tournament in November 2011. Over the past year, both Verizon and T-Mobile invested in esports, with the former running an esports tournament with Epic Gaming Lounge in Dallas, Texas in August 2015, and the latter sponsoring ESPN’s new esports section ahead of its launch in January.

The team Vodafone will be title sponsoring is relatively new, consisting of five Spanish players most fans probably won’t recognize: Rosendo “Sendo” Fuentes, Kevin “Inkos” Alpire, Ismael “Miniduke” Martinez, Guillermo “Sou” Velasco, and Jesús “Falco” Perez. They’ll compete a step below the  Challenger Series—the second highest tier of League of Legends—in Spanish national leagues, where another League Championship Series organization, Giants Gaming also has a squad.

Photo via Riot Games (PD) | Remix by Jacob Wolf