Barcelona announce strategic esports alliance with gaming behemoth Tencent Gaming

Spanish giants FC Barcelona have announced a strategic cooperation agreement with Chinese game developers Tencent. The announcement was made at the recent Tencent Esports summit that took place in Hainan, China. Barcelona already have an esports team that competes in Psyonix’s Rocket League and Konami’s simulation football title Pro Evolution Soccer (PES). 

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Barcelona announce partnership with gaming giants Tencent

According to the press release, the Catalan club will work with the Chinese conglomerate to strengthen their efforts in esports, which will include creating opportunities in "esports gaming and education."

Barcelona are reportedly looking to enter the popular Chinese League of Legends. An alliance with Tencent could prove pivotal in their aspirations of entering the rapidly growing esports scene. Tencent Gaming co-owns TJ Sports, which operated League of Legends Pro League (LPL) with Riot Games. Riot Games is also owned by Tencent. The roots of Tencent Gaming go well beyond just League of Legends, as the developers have ownerships in Clash Royale developer Supercell, Fortnite developer Epic Games, PUBG developer Bluehole and Call of Duty developer Activision Blizzard.

This also not the first time that Tencent has forged an alliance with a professional football club. Last year, the Chinese company entered into a partnership with Premier League club Manchester City to fortify their esports division. 

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Meanwhile, other top clubs across Europe have also identified that a budding partnership with esports can go a long way in helping them establish a market share in new regions. Arsenal, Paris Saint-Germain, Juventus and several other clubs have partnered with Amazon's streaming subsidy, Twitch, to broadcast games and behind-the-scenes footage on the platform. While this may appear to be a different strategy as opposed to being directly associated with esports, on a dedicated sports content channel like Twitch, clubs could potentially gain a lot of traction from professional gamers and viewers. 

Announcing its arrival to sports broadcast, Twitch has introduced a new section called 'Twitch Sports' dedicated to broadcasting content in and around sports. Manchester City star Sergio Aguero is one of the biggest athletes who predominantly stream gaming sessions on Twitch. Formula One racer Lando Norris, NBA star Ben Simmons and NFL's Juju Smith-Schuster are other popular streamers on the platform. 

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(Image Credits: Barcelona Esports Twitter)