AirAsia Allstars Esports Clubs is welcoming three new sponsors for its gaming centre, the Malaysian airline announced through social media.
The team, that consists of employees from the airline, will receive peripherals from Razer while Alienware will supply gaming rigs and monitors. Secretlab will provide chairs for the AirAsia Esports Zone, a gaming centre in the works that will be located in the company’s headquarter known as RedQ. According to the announcement, the centre is starting with 12 fully equipped stations for 6v6 competitions.
AirAsia started its incursion into esports back in June 2017. The airline became a sponsor of Mineski, a Dota 2 competitive team based in the Southeast Asia region. In April 2018, Tony Fernandes, CEO at AirAsia Group announced the acquisition of Team Saiyan. The team that competes in Mobile Legends was rebranded as AirAsia Saiyan.
On a video posted on Facebook, Fernandes announced the acquisition and stated: “Now airlines are sponsoring football clubs, but that’s passé. We’re excited to get involved with mobile esports, a lot of exciting things happening with mobile esports.”
Now, the airline continues to grow its esports initiative with the AirAsia Esports Zone in the heart of the RedQ with three key sponsors. The goal behind this centre is to promote esports within the company and encourage the local talent. Southeast Asia is a fast-growing region with millions of esports enthusiast.
The Malaysian airline head of Engagement and Internal Branding, Allan Phang spoke in an interview with Esports Observer Phang said: “You have sports tourism and health tourism. Esports tourism is the next wave. If you don’t start now, you will miss out.”
The involvement of the company is not limited to sponsoring teams. Back in June, AirAsia was introduced as the title sponsor for the ASEAN World Electronic Sports Games.
Esports Insider says: Companies based in Asia are getting involved in esports thanks to the growth of the industry in the past couple of years. AirAsia is taking their involvement further, the airline is educating its employees about it so esports become part of the company’s culture. Companies usually have teams competing internally in traditional sports, if more brands follow the airline’s footsteps we could see internal esports tournaments.