On Jan.22, Chinese esports club Vici Gaming (“VG”) announced a new partnership with Shanghai International Port Group F.C. (SIPG) at the esports complex of VG.
At the press conference, two clubs officially signed a strategic cooperation deal, and they will start the cooperation with the mobile game: Kings of Glory, which stands as the most famous mobile game in China. Furthermore, the two clubs will work together to promote the integration of traditional sports and esports.
Ding Jun, the club funder of VG, said that “As the Chinese team won the championship of Arena of Valor (The international version of Kings of Glory) at the 2018 Asian Games, esports is widely recognized and accepted by the public, and esports will be widely watched like traditional sports in the future. At the end of 2018, VG has successfully returned to the official highest professional league of Kings of Glory-the King Pro League (KPL), and VG hopes its esports teams can learn the management and operation model of traditional sports used by Shanghai SIPG. With the launch of this cooperation, VG hopes its team can achieve great success at KPL and become the leader of the league like Shanghai SIPG.”
Besides the cooperation in Kings of Glory, Shanghai SIPG also wants to develop the diversity of fans and increase the number of football fans in the esports fan base through the cooperation with VG.
Shanghai SIPG is a professional football club that participates in the Chinese Super League. The club was founded in 2005 and it has become the third-most valuable football club in China, with a club value of $159m (£121m) in 2015. In 2018, Shanghai SIPG won its first championship of Chinese Super League.
Esports Insider says: As the great success of the cooperation between PSG football club and LGD esports club, the trend of integrating traditional sports with esports is becoming more and more popular in the esports industry. Due to the similarity between traditional sports and esports, it will be interesting to see whether the two can develop a common fan base and expand their target markets together.