The world of sport has been using video game tournaments for several years to develop its activities, rejuvenate its fanbase and promote its sponsors. Discover how several sports federations and clubs have integrated esports into their strategy.
Portuguese Football Federation
The Portuguese Football Federation decided in 2017 to create its own esports division to support and develop the new trend of competitive video gaming in the country.
The FPP platform is a real information and tournament hub for the country’s efootball video games fans.
To do this, it launched its own tournament platform on FIFA, open to all players in the country. Based on the Toornament’s API and management software, the platform offers regular cups and leagues in numerous formats and for different categories of players: duel, 2vs2, womens only, clubs, etc.
The most important tournaments end during live events and are broadcast live on the RTP Arena Twitch channel.
A tournament bracket integrated on the PFF website with Toornament widgets.
Beyond the organization of the tournaments, the platform serves as an information relay for all news related to esports football in Portugal.
French Football Federation
Since 2021, the French Football Federation has been organizing its own video game competition on the game FIFA. The operation allows its licensees to represent their club on the eFoot scene and to participate in tournaments organized in all regions of France.
The eFootball Cup site created with Toornament website builder
The FFF relies on the involvement of its leagues, districts and local clubs to communicate with their licensees and organize their tournaments. To help them, the FFF has notably published a guide which allows clubs to structure their practice and have an eFoot representative in their region to support them.
This is how the 2023 edition of the eCup mobilized 60 districts during a first departmental qualification stage, then 15 leagues. More than 70 tournaments were organized throughout France, at the end of which 15 winners qualified for the national final. This took place successively at the Clairefontaine National Football Center then at the Stade de France.
The FFF used the Toornament no-code website builder to create the eCup site and display the competition data such as tournaments list, participants list and results. Each local district staff organized their qualifications with Toornament’s management software, which automatically integrated them into the official competition website.
The tournaments qualifiers list from the “Hauts-de-France” local league.
French Bastket Ball Federation
Since 2020, the French Basketball Federation has been involved in esports with the creation of its brand FFBB Esports. This approach is part of the diversification of its practice offering and is integrated into the “Living Together” program. The FFBB has dedicated a section to the practice of esports on its website to explain its fundamentals and provide advice for its clubs to develop it.
Live broadcast on the FFBB Twitch channel of Rocket League tournaments
At the end of 2020, the FFBB launched its own esports competition, the Hoops League, followed by the Hoops Cup in 2023. The FFBB chose the video game Rocket League and the Hoops mode which mixes car driving and basketball. Open to both licensees and non-licensees, these competitions consist of regular leagues and tournaments in teams of 2 players. Some editions brought together more than 100 participating teams. Each competition is broadcast live on the Twitch streaming platform, both on the official FFBB channel and on partner channels specializing in Rocket League.
Tournament public page of FFBB Hoops Cup on Toornament
Since the first edition, the FFBB has choose Toornament competition management software to organize its cups and leagues. In 3 years, the FFBB organized 37 tournaments with over 1400 participants using Toornament.
Professional football clubs
Many professional football clubs are also turning to video game tournaments to attract a new audience to their stadium, activate their sponsors or engage their fans. Here are two examples:
FC Nantes football club
As part of the activities for its members, the FC Nantes football club offered a tournament on the game FIFA 23. Around a hundred members took part to win VIP seats, jerseys, and goodies. The 4 finalists played the last matches in the Fan Zone of the Beaujoire stadium ahead of the NANTES-ANGERS match of the 2023 professional football league season.
Clermont Foot 63 club
The Clermont Foot 63 club has set up a gaming area within its stadium to host video game events. In particular, it hosted its first tournament on the game Rocket League last spring.
The tournament began on internet and the final was played at the opening of the CLERMONT-REIMS match in front of the spectators present.
Whether sports organizations need to organize tournaments, publish a competition site or develop a complete platform, they have all found with Toornament the tools necessary for their esports strategy.
Sports federations, clubs or marketing and events agencies, if you want to talk about a gaming project feel free to contact our team at [email protected].
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- Source: https://blog.toornament.com/2023/10/how-sports-organizations-develop-their-presence-in-esports/
