Not too long ago, a brand entering gaming might have sounded like a novelty: a digital skin, a team jersey, a logo on a broadcast. However, from what I witnessed at DreamHack Birmingham , the connection looked far more significant. More than 54,000 fans came through the NEC over three days, alongside over 800 creators, 60 partners and competitions spanning Call of Duty, Dota 2, F1 Sim Racing and more. The event called itself the “Glastonbury of gaming,” but one has to ask whether gaming now needs that comparison at all. For brands, esports partnerships are beginning to take on the mantle of a cultural operating system rather than a niche media buy.

The numbers around esports are simply staggering. Newzoo estimates that the global games market reached $188.8 billion in revenue in 2025, with 3.6 billion players worldwide, indicating that gaming is far larger than just a subculture, but scale alone is not what makes it compelling. Brands raised on the traditions of broadcast advertising and performance marketing now need to look at how that audience behaves: it watches, plays, streams, comments, buys, creates and gathers in person.

Recent partnerships between esports organisations and household names such as Sony, Amazon, Mastercard, DHL, Samsung, Smiley and Solo Leveling add serious weight to this argument. As of today, Lamborghini joins that list, with a long-term partnership with ESL FACEIT Group that will see the Italian supercar manufacturer become the official automotive partner for DreamHack festivals in the U.S. and EU through to 2028. These are not small test campaigns around a niche audience; they are signs that major companies are treating esports as a route into culture, identity and long-term fan relationships.

Why Esports Partnerships Now Start With Festival Culture

Shahin Zarrabi, VP Festivals at ESL FACEIT Group, sits very close to the live experience side of gaming. For Zarrabi, the UK market had been missing precisely that kind of event. Gaming culture has grown, he says, but live experiences where people can “meet and be passionate together around gaming” had become more limited. DreamHack’s pitch is broader: “we don’t consider ourselves convention, a conference or LAN, an esports event, but rather a festival where we gather a bunch of different things at the same place.”

His belief is that fandom no longer sits in a single lane. “Gaming is mainstream compared to when I grew up,” Zarrabi says. “You don’t even say you’re a gamer, just as much as you don’t say you’re a music listener.” Instead, people identify with genres, creators, teams, communities and cultural moments, which is why he expects gaming and DreamHack to keep crossing into “sports, music, fashion, movies and things like that.”

For brands in particular, this is a very useful reframing, since beyond simply offering a younger audience, gaming also provides a route into a culture where identity is performed, watched, worn and shared.

Esports Partnerships Are Built On Attention, Not Just Reach

Mohammed Al Nimer, Chief Commercial Officer at Esports Foundation, gave me a more macro commercial view. His role focuses on the Esports World Cup as a global platform, examining why sponsors such as Sony, Amazon, Mastercard, Pepsi, Aramco and others are now treating esports as a serious partnership environment.

EWC’s own figures are just as impressive: 750 million viewers, 350 million hours watched and 3 million visitors. But Al Nimer is careful to hone in on what these metrics really mean. “Viewers tell you how many people came in. Hours watched tell you whether they stayed, cared, and were emotionally invested,” he says. “For sponsors, that depth of attention is often more valuable than passive reach.”

His wider belief is that, for brands, "the conversation has moved from reach to relevance, attention, and participation. Reach opens the door, but engagement, audience quality, market fit, and measurable fan behaviour are what ultimately justify serious sponsorship investment.”

This is particularly key for brands, since esports offers more than just awareness; it offers aspiration, identity, community and emotional proximity in a form that is measurable, live and highly participatory.

How Esports Partnerships Became Media Ecosystems

The strongest partnerships in gaming are better described as media ecosystems than conventional sponsorship deals. Al Nimer points to Amazon as a useful example, where Twitch, Prime Video, Alexa and Wondery each extend the relationship into different parts of the fan journey.

Another great example of this is the Level Up documentary made with Sony Pictures and Amazon Prime Video, which he describes as a “Drive to Survive for esports.” The key value of this content sits in reaching people who may never watch a match, but will watch a story about ambition, pressure and competition.

“We do not see ourselves only as an event,” Al Nimer says. “We see EWC as a global platform built around games, players, clubs, creators, and fans.” He went on to describe it as “a media platform, a live entertainment event, a fandom ecosystem, a commercial environment, all wrapped into one.”

For brands, rather than simply buying space around a tournament, the opportunity can now stretch across broadcast, social, documentary, creator content, live experience, hospitality, product and commerce.

Esports Partnerships Turn Teams Into Cultural Access Points

At club level, Vas Roberts, Co-CEO of Team Vitality , gives the clearest view of how esports organisations are becoming cultural brands in their own right. Roberts says conversations with brands have changed sharply. “Just a few years ago, a brand conversation would start with, what’s my reach? Or, where does my logo show up?” Although these questions are still important, more engaged brands are now asking how they become relevant to the community and how they should appear in the ecosystem. “They’re thinking about us less as a media channel and more as an access point,” he added.

Looking at Esports teams as an “access point” is a pertinent way to look at things, since they can give brands entry into communities that have grown around players, creators, content and team identity over years. And, as with affiliating themselves with teams from any other discipline, competitive success still helps. Vitality’s top-three finish in the EWC club rankings in 2025 gives partners a story to attach themselves to. But Roberts says the deeper commercial strength sits in the brand and the community, and in understanding how to build activations that resonate.

“They absolutely are,” Roberts said when I asked whether esports teams are becoming entertainment and lifestyle brands. “Most teams and orgs are pursuing revenue diversification, which sees them naturally evolving more into the entertainment and lifestyle space.” For Vitality, this means partnerships with brands that have “a genuine cultural point of view across sport, music, media and other ancillary verticals, rather than just brands with budgets.”

That shift is visible beyond Vitality too. Rival team, G2 , has been extending its presence across entertainment, fashion and culture, with partnerships spanning Ralph Lauren, Warner Bros’ Batman, Smiley and Solo Leveling. In each case, the point was not simply to create merchandise, but to signify the evolution of an esports team into a cultural brand with its own collaboration language.

Where Fashion, Luxury And Lifestyle Brands Fit Into Esports Partnerships

This is particularly relevant for fashion, luxury and lifestyle brands, because those categories have always sold more than product. They sell identity, aspiration and belonging, and gaming is now one of the places where all three are built most visibly and most socially.

“The best fashion and sportswear brands understand that gaming is not only about performance; it is also about identity, lifestyle and self-expression,” Al Nimer says. “They can bring coolness, design credibility and streetwear energy into esports, while still supporting the athletic performance side of competition.”

Zarrabi sees festivals such as DreamHack becoming testing grounds for this kind of crossover. He says the comparison points are increasingly events such as ComplexCon, Fanatics Fest and Coachella, rather than old gaming conventions. “There’s tons of opportunity to engage with other cultural verticals, one of them being fashion,” he says. His example is simple: if a major streamer launches a fashion brand, why should that remain a screen-only moment? A drop, a stage show, a meet-and-greet and a gaming activation can all happen inside the same festival environment.

For brand partnerships, especially for fashion brands , this signifies the power of gaming, when collaborations can become a live experience, products can become fan rituals, and creators can become the bridge between digital culture and physical desire.

Esports Partnerships Have To Earn Their Place

The risk, of course, is that gaming audiences are unforgiving when brands arrive badly. Al Nimer uses a simple test: “Take the brand out of it entirely. Does the experience still stand on its own merit? If the answer is no, you haven’t built something authentic.” He points to Sony at EWC, where the partnership extended from the Level Up documentary to Japan Park with Crunchyroll Anime, and to bringing Hideo Kojima to meet fans. Those moments worked because they gave attendees something they would have wanted anyway.

Zarrabi gives a more unexpected example from DreamHack: DHL. On paper, a logistics company on a gaming festival floor might feel awkward. In practice, he says, DHL integrated into game activations, broadcast talent content, mascots and fan moments. People were taking photos with DHL because the brand had "truly immersed themselves and want to be part of the festival,” he says.

The same principle is now being applied at the premium end of the market. Just today, ESL FACEIT Group has announced their long-term partnership with Automobili Lamborghini through to 2028. At DreamHack Atlanta, Lamborghini will bring two Temerario models wrapped in gaming-inspired liveries into the Creator Hub, alongside sim racing challenges and additional festival activations. The intention is clear: for a brand built on performance, aspiration and design, gaming offers a way to reach younger audiences through experience rather than passive advertising. Christian Mastro, Marketing Director at Automobili Lamborghini, says the partnership is about bringing Lamborghini “closer to new generations” and translating “the Lamborghini dream into new, immersive experiences for a highly passionate and dynamic audience.”

Roberts gave an unequivocal view from the team side of things: “Advertising in esports is not about a passive TV spot or a button and banner, and our communities are very brand literate, so they can smell if something is organic or forced.” When brands work well with Vitality, he says, they engage through content, players and communities in ways that feel welcomed rather than ignored.

For brands, a capsule collection or a one-off collaboration will rarely be enough in isolation. The product has to sit inside a story, a creator relationship, a team identity or a live moment that fans recognise as valuable.

“Yes, players and creators are becoming media products in their own right,” Roberts says. “When a creator or player streams, posts, creates anything, they are doing so to an audience they have spent years cultivating and entertaining.” For brand partners, this level of authenticity is invaluable because it feels natural, but it also forces teams to find the right structure between personal channels and the wider brand.

Esports Partnerships Reward The Brands That Stay

The final lesson for brands, when it comes to gaming and esports partnerships, is patience. Roberts is especially clear on what brands should focus on when entering esports: spend time in the community, understand what it values, celebrates, accepts and rejects, and avoid assuming that standard marketing tactics will work. “Unless your intention is to have a sustained presence, then I would reconsider if esports is for you,” he says. “This is not a transactional play... you can’t just show up and buy a slice of the pie, if you try that, you will be laughed out of the server.”

Recent partnerships would seem to back up this direction of travel. Lamborghini’s agreement with EFG runs through 2028, while DHL has built its presence across EFG events over a number of years. The stronger esports partnerships look at long-term cultural positioning, where brands learn about the community over time and build trust through repeated, useful appearances.

That may be the most useful advice for brands engaging with esports; gaming offers brands a powerful new collaboration platform, but it comes with its own language, etiquette, humour and standards for authenticity.

If brands can get it right, esports partnerships could become one of their most important cultural entry points: part live event, part creator economy, part entertainment platform and part youth identity engine. The brands that win will be the ones that have a long-term aim of entering a living culture, rather than chasing short-term attention from the periphery.