Turner Sports has renewed its sponsorship agreement with GEICO, a major sponsor during ELEAGUE’s first year—a deal pegged by some as being worth $2 million per year.
The insurance provider is one of a plethora of non-endemic sponsors who signed up to back ELEAGUE with their marketing dollars.
Major corporations like Domino’s Pizza, Arby’s, Snickers, and Credit Karma all sponsored ELEAGUE last year, with Turner also securing sponsorships from major motion pictures like Sausage Party. Endemic brands like HyperX, Dell, and G FUEL have also inked deals to sponsor ELEAGUE.
The going rate for these sponsorships is around $2 million per year, according to Sports Business Daily. In January, SBD also reported that some initial ELEAGUE sponsors were unhappy with the viewership of the tournaments, and that all the initial deals were for a single year.
The ELEAGUE Major did break viewership records, however, with televised Counter-Strike broadcasts generally reaching between 200,000 and 300,000 viewers on TBS. Turner’s approach to esports, with the company maintaining the standard set by more established esports broadcasts and mixing it with their traditional broadcast experience, has also received widespread acclaim from fans and pundits alike.
Though many of ELEAGUE’s sponsors were entering esports for the first time, GEICO has been investing in the industry for a number of years. The company has a long-standing partnership with TSM.
After two seasons of the ELEAGUE Counter-Strike competition, a Valve Major, and an Overwatch tournament in 2016, Turner Sports has now expanded to Street Fighter V, with the SFV invitational ongoing and the playoffs kicking off on May 26.
