April 6 – UEFA has expanded its video gaming commercial category into three parts, taking account of the growth opportunities in the video gaming and exploding eSports sector.
A tender for proposals has been issued for separate club and national team rights for:
- Official football simulation game and associated Esports rights
- Official football management games
- Football related casual games and associated Esports rights
Previously UEFA has licensed is official video game category to EA Sports for the European Championships in 2012, while Konami took the rights for Euro 2016 for its Pro Evo series (PES).
In 2015 Konami signed a three-year deal extension for exclusive Champions League and Europa League club competition rights for its PES format.
The tender now in play is for the 2018 – 2021 cycle for club Competitions, and the 2018 – 2022 cycle for national team competitions.
Club competition rights include the Super Cup, Women’s Champions League, UEFA Youth League and the UEFA Futsal Cup. National team rights include the 2020 Euros, the newly launched Nations League Final Four 2019 and 2021, European Under-21 Championship 2019 and 2021, and the European Futsal Championship 2018, 2020 and 2022.
Firms interested in tendering need to contact either TEAM Marketing for club competitions or CAA 11 for national team competitions by April 14.
In 2016 video game revenues generated more than $100 billion with the top 25 companies accounting for $70.4 billion. China’s Tencent, the world’s largest company by game revenues, generated $10.2 billion, representing a 10% share of the global market.
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