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NRG eSports has announced a new sponsorship deal with a company called Events DC.
Events DC is what’s known as a quasi-public company. According to Dot eSports this means that it receives taxpayer money, and its board is appointed by the mayor of Washington DC, but technically operates independently from the government.
The company has sponsored NRG, which for the time being means that the events DC logo will appear on NRG apparel, Twitch streams and the company will get access to players for promotional events. NRG will also hold bootcamps in Washington and will have access to the Washington Mystics WNBA arena when it is built in 2018. The arena will also look to host eSports events in the future.
"We have a bunch of universities here in Washington," said Events D.C. Chairman Max Brown when speaking to Mashable. "There are lots of younger kids who are here and are coming here every year through our universities so we think it makes a lot of sense for us as a city to plant a flag [for esports], and ultimately be the capital of esports like we’re the capital of the United States."
While the deal does give NRG a link to a physical location it does not mean that the team will be applying for the Washington slot in the Overwatch League. Each team in the competition will be based in a city, which has lead a lot of organisations to partner with sports clubs to get that geographical link. However NRG co-founder Andy Miller said this deal does not tie them to the city for the League.
"One — we want to make sure we’re in the Overwatch League," said Miller "Two — if it’s Washington D.C., that would be great. We have a wonderfully exciting team that we want to keep together and we want to keep growing and we have a fanbase and we’ve been in it for a while and we’ve been carrying the torch for Overwatch for a while now. I do think this [sponsorship] is a validation for the city-based approach that they’re trying to put together."
