Lagardère Sports has today (Tuesday) become the exclusive sponsorship agency of the League of Legends European Championship (LEC) as part of a wide-ranging deal designed to solidify its presence in the esports sector.
The multi-year partnership is centred around commercialisation of the newly-established LEC, the official governing body for the League of Legends competition in Europe. Lagardère Sports will seek to leverage its long-term knowledge in sports sponsorship consulting and activation to conceptualise and establish long-term partnerships between endemic and non-endemic brands and the LEC.
The LEC and Lagardère Sports will be working together on future initiatives that will seek to enhance the relevance of the league as well as esports as a whole, including the development of innovative sponsorship concepts and unique activations.
Robert Müller von Vultejus, managing director of Lagardère Sports Germany and head of business development in Europe at Lagardère Sports, said: “The partnership with the League of Legends European Championship is truly a milestone in our endeavours to establish Lagardère Sports as the leading sports marketing agency in esports in Europe.
“We have been an integral part of the professionalisation in sports for more than two decades. For the past two years we have been transferring this knowledge into esports and we are very much looking forward to taking this to the next level. As the exclusive sponsorship agency for the LEC, we are the go-to platform for League of Legends esports partnerships in Europe. We identified esports as one of our key drivers for the future and we will certainly do more in this exciting environment of new sports.”
As part of the partnership Lagardère Sports will launch a microsite dedicated to the agency’s esports activities and the sponsorship opportunities at the LEC. In the coming days Riot Games EU and Lagardère Sports said they will announce several brand partnerships for the LEC that will further underline the ambition to establish it as the leading esports league in Europe.
Moritz Altmann, senior director of esports at Lagardère Sports, added: “League of Legends fans tend to be young, digital, and innovative and therefore very much interesting for numerous premium brands and advertisers.
“The LEC creates for the first time in Europe a sustainable, and plannable esports ecosystem around a video gaming title that will very much take away a lot of questions marks that brands might have in the past when thinking about entering esports.”
The LEC will gather the 10 best European teams of League of Legends including Schalke 04 esports, Fnatic, SK Gaming, Origen, Misfits Gaming, Excel Esports, Rogue, Splyce, Team Vitality and G2 Esports.