MCV/DEVELOP News, events, research and jobs from the games industry
One of Europe’s oldest eSports organisations has taken up a partnership deal with prolific CD key reselling site G2A.com, which is still facing a blackout sponsorship ban by Riot Games.
SK Gaming has described the deal as the first of their new partnerships in 2016, suggesting further sponsors in the pipeline for later in a year they predict to be "an extraordinary year".
"G2A has been a driving force and important contributor to eSports’ growth in recent years," said SK Gaming Managing Director Alexander Mller,"and we couldn’t be happier to have such a partner on our side heading into 2016."
The site, which offers users the ability to sell redeemable keys for digital games on services such as Steam, boasts a marketplace of 6million customers.
It has also been one of the largest endemic sponsors in the industry, with ESL’s CS:GO Pro League prominently featuring branding, as well as teams such as Cloud9 and Natus Vincere.
"Empowering eSports and its community is one of G2A’s main priorities," said G2A co-founder Dawid Rozek. "As a fan of SK Gaming from World of Warcraft times I’m happy to be working together with them as they are one of the oldest e-sports teams showing everyone how to grow from a gaming clan into international organisation."
The move is, however, somewhat fraught as G2A is still in the midst of a battle with League of Legends developer Riot Games over sponsoring teams in their tournaments.
Riot asked teams sponsored by G2A to drop the logo from their jerseys in September last year after the site began promoting a service to boost player rankings, which contravenes the LCS rules.
SK Gaming currently has a team in the Challenger Series, one division below the LCS, looking to gain promotion during this season’s Spring Split.
The ban is still in effect, however, as Brazilian team INTZ received a R$5,000 fine on January 30 for failing to cover up or remove the logo from their jersey.
