When the Rocket League Championship Series (RLCS) returns for its seventh season next month, it may bring along some new sponsors for the ride. That’s because Rocket League 
creator Psyonix recently agreed to an exclusive partnership with Turner Sports’ ELEAGUE brand, which will see Turner’s ad sales team handle sponsorships and advertising for the league.
“In the early days, when we did have our partnership with Twitch, we were a very, very small company.”
The companies previously teamed for a pair of ELEAGUE Cup: Rocket League tournaments, but this new partnership is much wider-ranging in nature. Beyond the ad sales and sponsorship component, ELEAGUE will also produce a TV feature series based on the next two RLCS seasons, as well as hold a live Collegiate Rocket League tournament at next month’s NCAA Final Four Fan Fest in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
It’s a deal that both sides see as mutually advantageous, and one that could have a big impact on the future of Rocket League esports and how ELEAGUE operates. The Esports Observer spoke with Psyonix vice president of publishing Jeremy Dunham and Turner Sports senior vice president of sales Seth Ladetsky about the origins of the partnership and what to expect.
Taking Control
The RLCS was originally a partnership between Psyonix and Twitch, with the streaming platform’s team handling league operations. However, after building up an internal esports team, Psyonix brought operations in-house with Season 5 and began running the league itself, while Twitch still handled ad sales and sponsorships behind the scenes. For Psyonix, the move was all about owning its esports initiative.
“In the early days, when we did have our partnership with Twitch, we were a very, very small company with very little experience in the live services and esports world,” said Dunham. “We were still getting our footing and understanding where we were going, and what kind of legs the game had. We were really looking for a lot of assistance and partnerships at that point.
“After we put in quite a few years of Rocket League esports and understood our game and audience better,” he continued, “we had a very clear vision internally of where we wanted our esports program to go. It was much more important for us to have as much control over our destiny as possible.”
Credit: ELEAGUE
That move ultimately led to this one, with Psyonix replacing Twitch with ELEAGUE for its RLCS ad sales and sponsorship needs. Twitch sits at the heart of most esports scenes and the RLCS will continue to stream via the platform, but Dunham sees an opportunity with ELEAGUE and the wider Turner media ecosystem to reach a larger, more mainstream audience and benefit from Turner’s long-standing sponsor relationships.
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“The main advantage obviously is just the huge reach that ELEAGUE, TBS, and Turner have out there with the ELEAGUE programming and the other games they’ve worked with, and all of the affiliates they have,” said Dunham. “[It’s also] just the sheer amount of partnerships that they can bring to the table for us and allow us to really grow Rocket League esports, not only in terms of how we’re approaching it operationally, but also in terms of potential audience and getting on additional channels that we haven’t been on before.”
“We really believe that a rising tide lifts all boats in esports. We really believe that and we want to help our partners.”
Dunham noted that the additional opportunities to connect with non-endemic sponsors could bring in more revenue for both Rocket League and ELEAGUE. However, he also pointed to another key part of the equation: the ability for Turner Sports, with a significant presence in both the esports and traditional sports worlds, to help convey the opportunity to potential sponsors who haven’t yet entered the esports industry.
“They’ve been working on ELEAGUE for a while for both linear and digital from multiple points of view,” he said. “They can really explain to sponsors what the value of the program is, what the plans are from a coherent point of view, and really help the partners who might not yet even have their foot in the door in esports understand that realm better.”
Turner’s Unique Edge
Since launching in 2016, Turner’s ELEAGUE series has featured a wide array of competitive games, from Counter-Strike: Global Offensive to Street Fighter V and Overwatch. However, this is the first time that ELEAGUE has entered a partnership like this, where Turner is not only holding a tournament and producing content for a game, but also handling ad sales and sponsorships for something that isn’t a strictly ELEAGUE-branded venture.
As Ladetsky explained, Turner sees an opportunity here to not only assist a valued partner, but also help expand the esports industry with its considerable resources and expertise.
Credit: Psyonix
“We’ve gotten very deep into the esports space. We have a really tremendous, broad sales team that does sports. From that point of view, we believe that we have that scale to bring new partners to Rocket League,” he said. “As we want the entire esports experience to grow, if we can help Rocket League and Psyonix—who’s been our partner for two or three years—then great. We really believe that a rising tide lifts all boats in esports. We really believe that and we want to help our partners. We have a good business relationship already.”
Asked what kinds of advantages Turner can offer Psyonix with ad sales and sponsorships over Twitch, Ladetsky said that Turner’s edge comes with non-endemic partners across a wide spectrum of industries—and that endemic deals won’t be ignored ether.
“We’ve gotten very deep into the esports space. We have a really tremendous, broad sales team that does sports.”
“We really bring this non-endemic view that I would say is the best in the industry,” he said. “We know the CMOs of most Fortune 500 companies because at [Turner parent company] WarnerMedia, we sell them NBA, the NCAA, and Major League Baseball, and we have CNN, Cartoon Network, and more. We simply have a very broad, deep sales team here that—in my opinion—is incomparable in the business. Granted, some other people in the space have very deep endemic relationships, and that’s great. Rocket League has that too, and we have that too. I think we’re adding to that with this kind of broad sales and marketing expertise.”
Ladetsky pointed to Turner Sports’ experience working with major traditional sports leagues and producing such content for decades now. Although that content airs on Turner networks, the branding is still primarily the partner’s. He said that Turner Sports and ELEAGUE can bring the same kind of mentality to esports with deals like this one with Psyonix.
“We want to work with [IP owners] and grow the space, whether that means it’s with the ELEAGUE brand or their brand,” he said. “Turner Sports has a great history of partnering with the NBA and Major League Baseball with their brands front and center. You never hear ‘Turner Sports’—you always hear ‘the NBA’ or ‘Major League Baseball’ or ‘UEFA Champions League.’ For us, we’re very comfortable being almost white label for sports, and this is really an extension of that.”
He added that while Turner Sports is open to further opportunities along these lines, for now the company is focused on Psyonix and making this partnership work.
Credit: ELEAGUE
“We’re excited. We’re really fired up. We love their IP, we really enjoy each other’s company, and the whole thing has really worked well,” Ladetsky added. “We wouldn’t do this with just anybody. We wouldn’t do a ton of these deals. This is kind of a special situation.”
From Final Four to Orgs
RLCS Season 7 will begin regular season play the weekend of April 6-7, and that very same weekend, ELEAGUE and Psyonix will partner for a live activation. They will host and live stream the Collegiate Rocket League (CRL) Spring Invitational at the NCAA Final Four Fan Fest in Minneapolis, highlighting the current CRL season’s four top teams at an event tied to the annual college basketball championship. It’s an activation that ELEAGUE has been considering for years now, and Rocket League seemed to be the right game for it.
“There’s a lot of opportunity there where it’s not always about the elite of the elite.”
“This just seemed like a perfect time to launch this,” said Ladetsky. “We’re bringing on AXE as a sponsor, and a lot of our ELEAGUE official partners will be activating through commercials and media through it. We’re super excited about it—it’s never been done before. We’ve done the Fan Fest for many, many years, and we see this as a natural extension of that.”
It could also be a sign of things to come for RLCS sponsorships for the seasons ahead. Unilever’s AXE fragrance brand will sponsor the event, as Ladetsky mentioned, and he teased that news on AXE’s further sponsorship plans for ELEAGUE and Rocket League would be forthcoming. It’s also an opportunity for Rocket League‘s budding collegiate scene to gain a brighter spotlight, as TBS will air a highlights special a few days after the tournament. For Psyonix, it’s another chance to produce esports content and tell stories while broadening the ecosystem.
“There’s a lot of opportunity there where it’s not always about the elite of the elite,” said Dunham. “Sometimes it’s about loyalty to specific schools or watching players who could be the next big thing in a year or two from now. It’s good to be able to have multiple types of stories that you can tell, whether it’s beginners or longtime veterans. From our point of view, having multiple avenues to tell Rocket League esports stories is a good thing, and we think that ELEAGUE views it as the same.”
As reported by The Esports Observer in November, one of the big stories around the Rocket League esports scene in recent months has been frustration from organizations over what they saw as a lack of a clear roadmap and communication about Psyonix’s plans, as well as a need for revenue sharing to aid long-term stability. That same month, Psyonix announced an in-game esports items pilot program, which will generate revenue for teams. It’s slated to launch before the end of RLCS Season 7.
Credit: Psyonix
Dunham said that having a large, dedicated ad sales and sponsorship team like Turner’s won’t directly impact that revenue-sharing initiative. However, he shared a bit more insight about the state of that program and how Psyonix hopes to expand and enhance it over time.
“We’re hopeful that it makes Rocket League a Tier 1 esport in the eyes of folks who might not even know what a Tier 1 or Tier 2 esport is.”
“We’re still putting the finishing touches on all of our agreements with the organizations and the rollout plan, etc, but we’ve made significant progress since we first talked about it,” he said. “We think that the teams and orgs are going to be pretty satisfied with the first offering that we’re going to have for fans, and then our main goal with that is also to be able to learn from that and find out what our audience is reacting to, what the orgs like, and what the fans like—and then make sure that each iteration of the [esports items] store afterwards continues to improve on what we’ve learned.”
Speeding Towards Tier 1?
Psyonix has more control over its own destiny with Rocket League esports, as Dunham said, but the company is now placing a lot of trust in Turner Sports and ELEAGUE to help take the scene to the next level. Between the ad sales and sponsorship side and expanded content agreement, he believes that ELEAGUE has the potential to turn Rocket League into a Tier 1 draw—one capable of appealing well beyond the core esports audience.
“We’re hopeful that it makes Rocket League a Tier 1 esport in the eyes of folks who might not even know what a Tier 1 or Tier 2 esport is,” he said. “The main goal for us, really, is just to get as many people involved in the scene as we can.
“We think that because it’s so easy to understand and fun to watch, we could actually bring in people who would never, ever buy Rocket League, but still watch it and enjoy it,” he continued. “Just like there are a lot of baseball fans out there who’ve never played baseball, but they enjoy watching it—the same with football and the other sports. We’re hopeful that those are the sorts of people we can bring in, in addition to the hardcore esports crowd which we already know supports Rocket League and is highly interested. We’re hopeful that this will just help the community grow bigger and bigger, and see how far we can really take it.”
