The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) is the national governing body of cricket in England and Wales. It oversees the professional men’s and women’s domestic games, as well as recreational cricket. They engaged Strive to help them assess esports and gaming opportunities with a view to understanding if an esports marketing strategy might help them better deliver their strategic objectives.
Esports marketing strategy scope of work
- Deliver a workshop to help the ECB’s team understand the:
- Difference between esports and gaming
- Esports competitive landscape and wider ecosystem
- Gaming audience
- Esports audience
- Gaming revenue
- Esports revenue
- Sports commercial approach to gaming
- Sports commercial approach to esports
- Gaming’s commercial challenges
- Esports’ commercial challenges
- Global gaming trends
- Global esports trends
- Develop a clear understanding of the ECB’s objectives and current, and target, audiences
- Recommend if the ECB could, and indeed should, develop an esports and/or gaming marketing strategy
Results
The ECB developed a better understanding of esports and gaming and the art of the possible. We agreed that at that particular time, and based on their strategic objectives and priorities, a watching brief on how the industry evolved was best rather than a strategic play.
Client comment
We constantly monitor social trends, and keep abreast of innovation in other sports and industries, to see what can be learned. We were keen to better understand the space and needed a blend of gaming and esports knowledge, combined with strong sports rightsholder experience, to help us achieve this. The work Strive delivered gave us the confidence that we were getting the best impartial advice available.
Looking for help with your esports marketing strategy?
If you’re looking for advice from an esports or gaming agency, Strive Sponsorship can help. Contact us for sponsorship, marketing, commercial, content, media, investment, and communications consultancy services.
Frequently asked questions
What are the marketing strategies used in esports?
Some of the common strategies adopted by sports rights holders when trying to market to the esports audience included signing a pro esports player, creating a new esports team, offering their IP under licence for someone else to operate in esports, building an esports league, develop a game to be used in esports, making their existing expertise/infrastructure available to esports businesses, offering their stadium/arena as an esports venue, and/or collaborating on content production.
What is the target market for esports?
The esports target market varies by game title and location. Traditionally Gen Z and Millenials have made up the bulk of viewers, but as esports has become more mature as a commercial competitive entity it has skewed to the higher end of this bringing in a Gen X audience too.
What esports audience is the biggest?
This depends on location. League of Legends, published by Riot Games, is widely considered the esports title with the biggest audience on a global scale. However CS:GO, Valorant, and DOTA II are also considered major titles, especially in the Western world.
