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Nike Finally Jumps Into eSports Sponsorship
The partnership with the Chinese League of Legends (LoL) star and reigning 2018 Asian Games gold medallist Jian “Uzi” Zihao from the Royal Never Give Up (RNG) team is a long overdue one for the forward-thinking, American sportswear giant.
As part of the deal, the 21-year-old professional eSports player will star alongside NBA star LeBron James and Chinese actor Bai Jingting to promote the former’s ‘Dribble &’ marketing campaign to support his upcoming ‘Shut Up and Dribble’ Showtime series.
Zihao’s team RNG has also signed a raft of commercial deals this year, including German carmaker Mercedes, dairy brand Yili, fast food franchise KFC and Douyu TV, China’s version of Twitch.
According to the ASN Index, Nike continues being the leading Apparel (Sports) brand (33.9%, ~US$263.2m) in the Chinese Sponsorship market since Q116. However, these investments tend to be in its traditional strongholds of basketball, football, athletics and tennis. China has taken up the bulk (80.6%) of eSports deals in Asia since Q116, with brands spending almost US$51m during this period and it was inevitable Nike would have followed suit.
