Dota 2 Sponsorship unites LeTou and Fnatic

Dota 2

October 31, 2019

For those who don’t know, LeTou is a popular Asian gambling company founded in 2016. It has offices across the Asian region and also in Europe, and now it’s extending its reach even further by partnering with Fnatic. The popular esports organization has a Dota 2 team that is based in Kuala Lumpur, and as their newest sponsor, LeTou is now part of their journey as well. In fact, they will be the main sponsor for the team, just in time for their next event.

Fnatic’s Dota 2 Team recently qualified for a major event in China – the MDL Chengdu Major that is taking place between the 16^th and 24^th of November. They’ll be up against 15 other teams from across the world, and competing with them for a chance to qualify for the International – the biggest Dota 2 event in the world.

As for the partnership – LeTou’s CEO, Paul Fox spoke about it:

“LeTou are passionate about our players and partnering with Fnatic gives us the perfect opportunity to engage with their growing esports market. Fnatic are known to be the best in the business and we are very excited to work with them to support their Dota 2 team and we will be creating memorable content to bring their community and ours together.”

If that’s not enthusiasm, we don’t know what is. As it stands, LeTou will not be paying for jerseys or merch as is often the case in these deals, they will have exclusive naming rights for the in-game team, along with a license for exclusive content, competitions and social media access for the duration of the partnership.

Read also: Esports Net Worth: The Billion Dollar Opportunity of Esports

The importance of investing in esports

This foray into esports by LeTou is quite a big deal – while it’s hardly anything unusual or new for companies to invest in esports teams, this new deal is focused more on communicative access, rather than merch or jerseys and the like.

Investing in esports has proven to be a great way for brands to expand into one of the hottest demographics in the world – young adults with a lot of disposable income that avoid traditional advertisement routes like TV ads or even newspaper postings.

Another thing to consider for this deal is an ongoing issue that both esports and the betting industry have: corruption. Both fields have had problems with fixed matches or manipulated odds, and deals like this actively counteract those problems. Direct collaboration means less opportunity for shady deals and offers more transparency than would otherwise be possible.

As more and more betting providers include esports along with traditional sports on their platform, it’s no surprise that esports is one of the hottest areas for new betting fans to join – this new audience is of the same importance to the betting industry that it is for the investors that sponsor esports deals.

We look forward to seeing how far LeTou and their Fnatic partners will get in the upcoming Chengdu competition.