Danish esports organisation Astralis had a brand new jersey sponsor for last week’s ESL One Cologne in the form of bookmaker Bet90.
Bet90 is an bookmaker that offers sports betting, live betting, virtual sports betting, and a live casino feature.
While the terms of this sponsorship aren’t clear, an announcement tweet from Astralis details that the deal was facilitated through eSports.com, and was only for the duration of ESL One Cologne’s playoffs.
ESL One Cologne is widely regarded as one of the better Counter-Strike: Global Offensive tournaments of the year, with a number of high-profile teams competing. Unfortunately for Astralis – which is considered the best team in the world – it wasn’t able to perform to its usual standards, getting knocked out in a semifinal match-up against eventual winners Natus Vincere.
ESL One is a series of tournaments organised and hosted by ESL in conjunction with Intel – two companies that have a rich history together. The series is part of the Intel Grand Slam circuit, a collection of events organised by ESL or DreamHack Masters that, when a team collects four wins in 10 totals – awards the victors with $1,000,000. Cologne is a bit event to be a part of, which may explain why Bet90 got involved with the favourite team ahead of the playoff action.
Astralis is sponsored by Turtle Beach, Jack & Jones, Audi Denmark, Coco Fuzion 100, PanzerGlass, and most recently, eSports.com. The Danish side’s deal with the esports website has been described as a long-term, record-breaking partnership with millions of dollars involved; no explicit details regarding the results of the deal were revealed at the time, however.
Esports Insider says: Astralis is perhaps the hottest property in CS:GO – despite the loss at Cologne – so having your logo emblazoned on the player’s jerseys seems like a clever move. The team didn’t get as far as perhaps people expected, which means Bet90’s logo wasn’t on display as much as it could have been – but we’re intrigued by eSports.com’s seemingly-first move since partnering with the Danish organisation.