Indian esports organization Marcos Gaming has announced a multi-year strategic partnership with sports and entertainment licensing firm Baseline Ventures. The deal will see Baseline manage all the commercial interests for the organization and its players.
Financial terms were not disclosed.
Marcos Gaming was created in December 2019, following the growth of mobile gaming in the region. The organization picked up one of the top prospects in the Indian PUBG MOBILE scene at the time, a team known as Zero Degree Esports. In April 2020, the organization announced its entry into Call of Duty: Mobile with another roster pickup. Its PUBG MOBILE squad is well known in the region and was a part of the recent PUBG MOBILE Pro League South Asia. The organization also fields a roster in Free Fire.
Founded in 2014, Baseline Ventures is an Indian company that works in the sports and entertainment industry with focus on talent management, media rights, and licensing. The company manages several prominent Indian athletes including badminton World Champion P.V Sindhu, snooker and billiards player Pankaj Advani, several notable cricketers such as Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Smriti Mandhana, and two of India’s highest-ranked squash players Saurav Ghoshal and Joshna Chinappa. The company has also secured multiple sponsorship deals for various sports properties and teams, such as the West Indies and Sri Lankan national cricket teams, Moto GP, and and the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP).
Speaking to The Esports Observer, the company’s joint Managing Director and Co-Founder, Vipin Nair said: “Baseline as one the leading sports marketing firms in India has sports sponsorship domain expertise and networks with clients and brands across industries for sponsorship business, on a daily basis”. “Considering the fact that globally esports tournaments and teams are now attracting non-tech sponsors, we feel that this is the right time to enter the esports landscape in India by offering sponsorship solutions to our clients who want to reach out to a new set of target audience i.e. esports fans.”
The partnership is the first in the Indian esports space and is the first time that a well-established sports management company has ventured into esports. Nair iterated the growing popularity of mobile titles and said there has been a lot of focus on the South Asian region, from both publishers and globally established teams. This in turn is attracting global sponsors to the Indian esports market and is an indication of a more professional approach for the entire sector.
Speaking specifically about the deal with Marcos Gaming, Nair said, “Our partnership with an upcoming esports team like Marcos Gaming will be to offer them a sustainable sponsorship business model in the long run through commercial representation of the team rights on an exclusive basis. For Baseline, it will also be a maiden opportunity to announce our entry into the esports ecosystem and organically extend our traditional sponsorship business expertise into esports.”
When asked about Baseline’s future plans with regard to esports, Nair explained that the company would like to explore the opportunity of product licensing and merchandising business for teams it partners with, as an extended business opportunity.
Shounak Sengupta is a staff writer for AFK Gaming.
