Home Tournaments How Combo Breaker Builds Fan Affinity with Sponsors, and Why Sponsor Support is ‘Mandatory’

How Combo Breaker Builds Fan Affinity with Sponsors, and Why Sponsor Support is ‘Mandatory’

by Andrew Hayward

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Credit: The Esports Observer/Esports Business Solutions UG

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At fighting game event Combo Breaker, held in St. Charles, Illinois, from May 24-26, The Esports Observer spoke with event director Rick Thiher about its steady annual growth, the festival-inspired vibe it strives to strike, and the impact on local businesses.

Thiher also discussed this year’s presenting sponsors, Samsung and Simple Mobile, which helped his team deliver the largest rendition of Combo Breaker to date. The companies had been involved with last year’s Injustice 2 Pro Series, which made a stop at Combo Breaker 2018. This time around, the companies’ representation approached Combo Breaker about a much more significant role, and both Samsung and Simple Mobile activated at the event.

“This is a festival environment, surrounded by die-hards that are here for a specific purpose, a specific camaraderie, and an experiential entertainment that cannot be provided anywhere else.”

Samsung had a large booth right inside the Pheasant Run Resort’s Mega Center arena, with chairs to relax in, Galaxy S10 smartphone demo units to try out, and game consoles set up with fighting games. Simple Mobile, meanwhile, installed phone charging stations where attendees could leave their devices for a while. Both companies also sponsored televisions around the resort that showed Combo Breaker’s active Twitch Database-Link-e1521645463907

streams.

“My assumption is that they recognized the community here had a need—something as basic as, ‘I need to charge my cell phone,’ which is extremely true,” said Thiher. “If you talk about the greatest value here: there are phone-charging stations, and if I walk around the resort, there are televisions set up that have the streams. […] They’ve provided that experiential additive here. It’s been incredibly valuable.”

What makes Combo Breaker a valuable event for sponsors? With attendance capped at 4,800 people this year and unlikely to be expanded significantly in the future, it’s a modestly-sized event in the grand scheme of esports competitions. However, between attendees and the fans watching streams, Thiher said that the fighting game community recognizes that sponsors are key to bringing events like Combo Breaker to life, and will likely remember that connection.

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Credit: The Esports Observer/Esports Business Solutions UG

“This is a festival environment, surrounded by die-hards that are here for a specific purpose, a specific camaraderie, and an experiential entertainment that cannot be provided anywhere else,” he said. “If you are a brand that invests into that experience and you become attached to it, and the consumer knows that their experience is benefited by your involvement, it’s very hard for us not to have an affinity for that product, that provider, or that brand.

“I don’t necessarily think that immediately translates to ROI of, ‘Cool, I’m gonna go buy a Samsung phone tomorrow,’” Thiher continued. “But knowing that they have allowed this experience to be what I would want it to be, as a consumer myself—the next time I’m in the market, if I’m looking at a bunch of phone provider competitors, that’s going to immediately make me go, ‘Yeah, maybe that one.’”

“We have tweets, still to this day… and they’re talking about the CyberPower backup they discovered at Combo Breaker getting them through a storm.”

Thiher pointed to the experience of working with CyberPower for the first of the current Combo Breaker events back in 2015. The company offers items like surge protectors and battery backups—”These are not sexy sells,” said Thiher. However, his team gave away some of those items they used once the weekend concluded, and he still hears from attendees about them and the connection between the brand and the event.

“We have tweets, still to this day… and they’re talking about the CyberPower backup they discovered at Combo Breaker getting them through a storm,” said Thiher. “That long-term equity, I think, is the actual investment opportunity in these communities. There’s a very small chance of immediate ROI unless you’re on the floor selling popcorn.”

Related Article: Combo Breaker Event Director on Growth, Selling a Unique Experience

It’s that kind of connection that Thiher sees as the real benefit to sponsors. It could be years before an attendee buys another smartphone or considers changing to a new mobile provider, but that association might stick in the back of the mind of someone who is entrenched in that community and benefits from the results of that sponsorship. It’s even better when the sponsor carves out that niche, said Thiher, and continually sponsors such events or efforts.

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Credit: The Esports Observer/Esports Business Solutions UG

“For tech brands, I think that affinity—just like when you go into a lifestyle market, if you engage with skateboarding or some of the alternative sports, that’s what you’re buying in for,” he said. “If you can do it successfully enough and repetitiously enough that you’re the only brand of note in the back of someone’s mind, then you have a lifelong customer for products that you know they’re not buying every five months, five weeks, or five days even. You’re talking about buys that go every five years.

“But Samsung Mobile is part of this event, so I’m going to think of that,” Thiher added. “But also Samsung in general. The next time I buy a TV, I’m probably going to think of a Samsung. Next time I buy a fridge—I don’t know if I care what brand fridge I have. I don’t have any sense of fridge loyalty. Samsung makes a fridge, and Samsung supported Combo Breaker? Cool. Samsung fridges sound fantastic.”

“Samsung makes a fridge, and Samsung supported Combo Breaker? Cool. Samsung fridges sound fantastic.”

Organizing and operating Combo Breaker is nobody’s 9-to-5 job, so sponsor support is “absolutely mandatory,” said Thiher. Without sponsors, there is no Combo Breaker. The fighting game community is known for its passion and enthusiasm, and Thiher suggested that Combo Breaker’s continual growth is due in part to his team showing that same kind of effort and drive with event development. That’s only possible with the aid of sponsors, he said—and his team strives to make it known just how critical sponsor support is for each event.

“We cannot do that without financial support,” he said, “and we can hope—though a mutual understanding of that support creating this experience, deeply and truly—that it will not only become cyclical support, but also create a cyclical fandom within this attendee base. Because we always go out of our way to point out what that support represents at each show.”

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