Mentioned in this article
- Carmaker Ford has announced Fordzilla, an esports team focused on racing games.
- Fordzilla will assemble national racing teams for each of five European countries, along with an overall European squad featuring top players from the national teams.
- The teams will first compete in Microsoft’s Forza Motorsport 7.
American automaker Ford has launched an esports team called Fordzilla, which will assemble European national teams to compete in racing videogames.
Announced alongside this week’s gamescom gaming convention in Cologne, Germany, Ford plans to recruit players for national teams based in Germany, France, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom, respectively. Additionally, the top players from those teams will compete together on an overall European team. According to an announcement video, Ford plans to complete its teams by the end of 2019 and begin competing in 2020.
The teams will first compete in Microsoft’s Forza Motorsport 7 racing simulator for PC and Xbox One. Ford’s release suggests that additional racing games are on the horizon for the team, although it doesn’t specify any further titles. According to Esports Earnings, Forza Motorsport 7 tournaments have awarded a total of $366K USD since the game’s release in 2017.
Ford has had a presence at gamescom each year since 2017, where it was the first carmaker to exhibit at the annual event. Last year, the company unveiled its Ford Ranger Raptor truck at the convention. Ford’s release suggests that the company is interested in the crossover potential between transportation and gaming, but also the possibility of motivating videogame players to try out real Ford vehicles.
“We at Ford have a racing pedigree that others can only envy. Now is the time to take that know-how and apply it to the world of esports—capturing the imagination of a new generation of virtual racing drivers, inspiring them to take a ride in one of our Ford performance vehicles,” said Roelant de Waard, vice president of marketing sales & service for Ford of Europe, in a release.
