Multi-year extension to enrich research standards in esports and evaluate brand partnership integration

Cologne/New York – ESL Gaming, the world’s leading esports company, and Nielsen, the global leader in audience insights, data and analytics, announced today the expansion of their comprehensive business relationship with an additional three years. 

The new agreement extends the already existing business relationship that started in 2019 and will continue to drive research standards in esports forward while providing ESL Gaming’s current and future brand partners with the necessary confidence to take their next, or first, step into the esports industry.

The agreement enables ESL Gaming to regularly report monetary valuations to brand partners and advertisers based on Nielsen’s industry-leading Quality Index (QI) Media methodology. This allows for determining the quantitative success of a partnership and for credible benchmarking against other esports and traditional sports. 

The scope of the business relationship has been expanded to track more events per year and more broadcasts per platform and channel. Covering 17 events, including the ESL Pro Tour in CS:GO and ESL Gaming’s Dota 2 properties, as well as ESL Gaming’s complete mobile esports ecosystem, the collaboration focuses on four main areas:

• Media & Sponsor Valuation: Measurement and tracking of media value for brand and media partners across major live streaming platforms and broadcast languages to provide a “full picture” on audience and media value achieved for partners;
• Community & Fan Analytics: E-sports audience research analysis delivering quantitative and qualitative consumer insights and analytics;
• Utilizing standardized metrics for E-sports viewership measurement and benchmarking across all relevant global and local live streaming platforms;
• Mobile gaming & E-sports: Assessment of ESL Gaming’s recently announced Snapdragon® Pro Series, including evaluating broadcasts and partner integration directly within the corresponding mobile games. 

“Nielsen is a true market leader when it comes to sports research. The long standing relationship has already provided our business partners with many in-depth insights into and a great deal of standardized reliable data about esports communities, brand activations and measurable ROI,” said Tobias Vogt, Director Commercial Operations at ESL Gaming. “By expanding this collaboration and including more events, we keep innovating our ecosystems and the wider industry, and we are very excited to continue sharing our extensive knowledge with our existing and future partners.”

“We are proud ESL is trusting Nielsen as the reliable source to evaluate all of their global events,” said Timo Krueger, Commercial Director Esports & Gaming, Nielsen Esports. ”We are working closely with ESL to understand better their challenges to provide the best and most beneficial data around partner valuation and fan/consumer behavior in a rapidly developing entertainment industry around the world.”

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