Football club Wolverhampton Wanderers has announced that it is partnering with the North American esports company Evil Geniuses to expand its esports offerings.
The partnership will initially see the team – better known by its nickname Wolves – use their Chinese esports team to help Evil Geniuses expand into the Asian market, where esports has a market size of around £16billion (150billion RMB) in 2021.
Wolves’ general manager of marketing & commercial growth, Russell Jones, said “We are looking forward to working together on a number of fan engagement initiatives over the next few months and when travel routes allow, we will be encouraging our teams to visit and learn from their respective colleagues.”
The club will provide Evil Geniuses with local training facilities in China, which includes a base for the League Of Legends World Championship, should the team qualify for the event in Shenzhen this year.
Wolves and Evil Geniuses will also be working together on English language content, including sponsorship opportunities and joint brand merchandise, which will be shown off in the coming months.
Evil Geniuses’ chief executive officer, Nicole LaPointe Jameson, said: “We are thrilled to partner with Wolves, a storied football club and strong sports and entertainment brand that aligns with our values and mission. This deal will help power Evil Geniuses’ expansion into the Asian markets while also providing new capital to sign more world-class players and grow into new esports titles.”
Evil Geniuses was founded in 1999, and has 86 national and 102 international championship titles.
Wolves currently have esports teams in Rocket League, Call Of Duty: Mobile, FIFA, virtual racing, and more. Information about Wolves Esports can be found on the website here.
Esports and Premiere League football have been as close as ever recently, with Manchester City announcing in June that it was looking for it’s first pro Fortnite player to represent the team.
In other news, Konami announced eFootball, a new free-to-play and digital-only football game which is replacing Pro Evolution Soccer.
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