Last week MTS, a leading Russian mobile operator, announced the acquisition of Praliss Enterprises, the parent company of Gambit Esports, for an undisclosed amount.
Gambit Esports has four teams (16 players in total) participating in the most popular cyber game disciplines: Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO), League of Legends (LoL), Dota 2 and FIFA. Gambit Esports teams have repeatedly earned world and European championship titles, as well as silver and bronze medals, in the largest international competitions. The club owns such exclusive assets as rights to participate in prestigious international tournaments, an own production of branded clothing and a studio for creating media content.
The primary sources of the club’s income are sponsorship contracts, prizes, sales of brand attributes and digital goods, remuneration for participation in leagues, as well as transfer revenues.
Gambit Esports will retain its 16 players and its staff while its CEO Konstantin Pikiner will continue leading the project as Chief Gaming Officer at MTS. The teams and players will continue competing at the international arena under Gambit Esports brand name.
“Our cybersport strategy includes marketing initiatives, as well as development of new products for gamers and their fans. To achieve these goals, we have created a separate eSports division within the company’s Innovation Center,” MTS stated.
The operator intends to “utilize the opportunities offered by Gambit Esports for branding purposes” and to “offer sponsorship cooperation to interested corporate partners.”
“Our digital strategy aims at developing products that lie outside the traditional telecom sector, to push boundaries and innovate,” MTS added.
Today, the operator offers more than 25 mobile applications (MTS Taxi, MTS Music, MTS Books, etc.), B2B cloud solutions, data analysis based on Big Data, cybersecurity systems and telemedicine services.
A $1.5 billion market
The global eSports industry reached $1.5 billion and is forecasted to grow up to $ 2.3 billion in 2020, according to data from Superdata Research cited by MTS.
Another research by PayPal and Superdata Research indicates that the Russian eSports market (the second largest in Europe after Sweden) amounted to $35.4 million in 2016.
In 2016 the Russian government officially recognized eSports (alsow known as “competitive video gaming” or “computer sports” in Russian) as a sport discipline. Cyber-athletes can thus receive such official titles as “Master of Sports of Russia,” “International Master of Sports” and “Honored Master of Sports of Russia.”
In 2015, Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov announced an investment of “$100 million or more” in Virtus.pro. More recently Winstrike, a Russian globally-oriented eSports company, attracted $10 million from private investor Nikolai Belykh and several business angels.
Sources: MTS, Gambit Esports
