Red Bull and eSports Business Opportunities

This assignment analyzes the burgeoning esports market and examines specific business opportunities for Red Bull within this sector. It delves into strategies for marketing, broadcasting, and merchandising esports content, highlighting the potential for growth and revenue generation. The paper also suggests avenues for Red Bull to expand its presence in esports through merchandise and partnerships with prominent organizations like Cloud9.

Running head: NEW BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES FOR RED BULL
NEW BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES FOR RED BULL
Name of the Student:
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1NEW BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES FOR RED BULL
Executive Summary
The aim of this report is to investigate the business opportunities for Red Bull for further
development of its e-sports tournament paradigm focusing on the business potential that this
investment opportunity presents. The report will conduct the study in relation to marketing,
merchandising and broadcasting. The report will conclude with successful implication of
these aspects for red Bull. It is recommended to apply the business potential in those aspects.

2NEW BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES FOR RED BULL
Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
Red Bull and its Business Opportunity for e-sports Tournament..............................................3
Business Opportunity in relation to Marketing in e-sports........................................................4
Business Opportunity in relation to Broadcasting in e-sports....................................................5
Business Opportunity in relation to Merchandizing the e-sports...............................................6
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................7
References..................................................................................................................................8

3NEW BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES FOR RED BULL
Introduction
E-sports or electronic sports are a kind of competition that is promoted by the
electronic systems, especially video games; rather, it incorporates professional gaming or
video gaming. The input of the players or the teams and the output of the sports are controlled
by computer inputs that are channelized by humans (Hamari et al. 2017). The most common
form of e-sport is video game competition where multiple professional players are associated
with it. Online media streaming, especially the twitch.tv is the major platform for promotion
and growth of the e-sports competitions (Tassi 2013).
The Red Bull, which is originally an energy drink maker from Australia and has been
existing from last thirty years in the market, organizes the e-sports tournament. The aim of
this analytical report is to investigate the opportunity for the Red Bull company to develop
further their e-sports tournament focusing primarily on their business potential that this
opportunity represents. The report will also analyze this business opportunity in relation to
marketing, broadcasting and merchandizing.
Red Bull and its Business Opportunity for e-sports Tournament
Red bull is the name that is associated with successful energy drink maker. However,
Red Bull is known for its market positing for sports too. Red bull has a formula one team,
which is Red Bull Racing and Soccer team, which is New York Red Bull. Red Bull is a
company that is enthusiastic for sports and its related events. Red Bull has shown interest in
e-sports automatically and understood that the e-sports would be a mass-phenomenon one
day. The first initiative was taken in 2008 when the company kept its feet in the domain of e-
sports. This global brand, Red Bull has taken a major part in the growth of the e-sports and it
has become an important part in the market of the e-sports (Redbull.com, 2017). Red bull has

4NEW BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES FOR RED BULL
host many e-sports event internationally and organized sessions in France, The United States
of America and Germany. The name of these sessions is Red Bull Battle Grounds, Red Bull
Team Brawl and Red Bull Clash Course, which is individual as well as group tournaments.
The company organizes as well as rewards with prizes, money and fame to the players or
teams of the e-sports events. The important games of the events are Dota2, Ultra Street
Fighter, HearthStone, Destiny, and League of Legends. The company signs contracts with
various e-sports players and has incorporated it within the marketing strategies of the Red
Bull. Red bull has noticed that these players are the most famous ones from the perspective of
sports and they are popular in terms of reputation. Thus, making contract with them
eventually would highlight the brand name, as the famous players would play under this
brand. For an example, Matt Hagg is a well-known face of the several e-sports and related
video format arranged and organized by Red Bull. Matt Hagg is a world famous call of Duty
player and an important member in the Red Bull family (Redbull.com, 2017).
Business Opportunity in relation to Marketing in e-sports
The market of the e-sports is a growing market and the brand should take it as a major
investment project. According to the statistics, the gaming business would make profit of 90
billion dollars in 2016. This becomes the largest international entertainment business. The
most interested viewers of the e-sports are people starting from 18 to 39 and it has reached
88% of them. Top professional e-sports players earn around 1 million dollars per year. The
fastest growing fans are women in the e-sports and taken 18% of the total audience. France
recognized it as the real sports from 2016 onwards (Esportsdailynews, 2017). E-sports has
been started in 90’s and spread from South Chorea to the whole world. The name of the
foundation for the e-sports is e-Sports Foundation (eSF), which represents 43 countries. The
big international brands like Amazon and Alibaba are invested millions of dollars for

5NEW BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES FOR RED BULL
promoting e-sports (Quincey 2016). However, from the marketing point of view, when
something has a huge market and audiences like that in e-sports, the company should invest
for this. It is suggested to Red Bull to invest money and organize e-sports tournament
competition among different professional players, as this is a growing international market.
The company has shown enthusiasms in the e-sports. E-sports are a very strong platform for
the sponsors and an efficient marketing vehicle that company like Red Bull can rely on it.
Though e-sports is not a main stream sports and many people still do not know about it,
however, it is expected that it will soon becomes the main-stream spots and will be
acknowledged by all.
Business Opportunity in relation to Broadcasting in e-sports
E-sports have large number of viewership. According to the statistics, 43
million viewers have watched the League of Legends in December 2016. However, it can be
said that the viewership of the e-sports are increasing in numbers. There is significant
differences how fans view the traditional sports and e-sports. E-sports are generally
broadcasted through online. However, there is a problem in context of broadcasting e-sports.
In contrast to the traditional sports, e-sports need an IP rights to play. The publisher of an e-
game like EA or Sony, owns an IP rights and anyone wants to play an e-game should have a
license or software license. This license sets out terms and conditions (Chawki 2016).
Depending upon this terms and conditions, e-sports player, team or organizer could have
access to play, permits others to play and view the game through game’s interface. However,
the users sometimes streams online from sites like Twitch.tv enjoying the facility of the
license. Sometimes, the publishers of the game encourages the viewers to share the game link
with other viewers maintaining the terms and conditions. This is very permissive approach to
participate and broadcast the game, which creates a limitation for e-sports. As the viewers of

6NEW BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES FOR RED BULL
this kind of sports are increasing in numbers, there is also growing need to amplify the
broadcasting facility. It could also engage more fans with the sports. However, if the
streaming system continues, it will potentially reduce the value of broadcasting the game and
the rights to broadcast. The publisher or developer might ask for licensing the streaming
platform, which could cause another restriction in the domain of e-sports broadcasting (Shea,
Fu and Liu 2015).
Red Bull connects with the target group of e-sports such as players, viewers and e-
sports enthusiasts. Each activity related to this is accompanied by several social media
promotion like, Twitter, Google+ or YouTube. This also helps in merchandizing the brand. It
has its own Twitch.tv channel where the company broadcasts e-sports tournaments and
events. This particular channel has 75,000 subscribers and the total channel views are 13.7
million (Redbull.com, 2017). However, in the company related e-sports website, different
types of contents are published.
However, It is recommended that like other traditional sports, e-sports should not
employ any broadcasting rights and that could help the organizers to engage more viewers.
The publishers, event organizers, players and teams should try to balance out the issue related
to broadcasting the game and they need to think very carefully about the commercial
structure that they use in sharing the content of the game with their viewers.
Business Opportunity in relation to Merchandizing the e-sports
Merchandizing is related to the practice that would contribute in selling of the product
to its retail consumers. In case of the Red Bull, the company organizes many e-sports events
worldwide, thus, it helps in selling viewership for them. This is also one of the marketing
strategies of Red Bull (Hebbel-Seeger 2012). The other merchandizing plans of the Red Bull
include sponsorship cooperation with TeamSoloMid and Cloud9, which are the two biggest

7NEW BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES FOR RED BULL
international e-sports organization. It creates partnership with the e-sports club. Thus, helps
in promoting and selling the game. Red Bull produces video- content that are related to e-
sports. It creates high quality videos that are in various types of format. It could be
documentary or recap of events. The viewers get chance to watch this types of video that
helps in monetizing the content, thus, merchandizing the game. The Red Bull has its own
Twitch.tv channel. On this channel, the Red Bull shows the important events, thus, it helps in
merchandizing the game (Sharma et al. 2017).
However, Red Bull could Merchandize the game related jersey, caps, socks, coffee
mugs, t-shirts and related material either online or in a physical shop. However, this could be
good marketing plan for the Red Bull. There are other options related to merchandizing the
game related materials like computer accessories, chairs, gadgets. It is recommended to the
company to explore this business opportunity in relation to merchandizing.
Conclusion
It can be concluded by stating that e-sports are the growing market that occupies a
large number of viewership. However, it is advised to the company Red Bull to employ the
business operation in e gaming as it has huge chance to grow. The business opportunity in
case of e-sports tournament has been discussed. The specific business opportunities in
relation to marketing, broadcasting and merchandizing have also been discussed from
multiple perspectives.

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References
Chawki, B., 2016. Esports sponsorship effectiveness on brand awareness and brand
image (Doctoral dissertation, Dublin Business School).
Esportsdailynews (2017). eSports: a Marketing opportunity? Pros and Cons. [online]
Esportsdailynews.fr. Available at: https://www.esportsdailynews.fr/esports-a-marketing-
opportunity-pros-and-cons/ [Accessed 14 Oct. 2017].
Hamari, J., Hamari, J., Sjöblom, M. and Sjöblom, M., 2017. What is eSports and why do
people watch it?. Internet research, 27(2), pp.211-232.
Hebbel-Seeger, A., 2012. The relationship between real sports and digital adaptation in e-
sport gaming. International Journal of Sports Marketing and Sponsorship, 13(2), pp.43-54.
Quincey, A.J., 2016. RED BULL: THE WIIINGS MIGRATION(Doctoral dissertation).
Redbull.com (2017). [online] Redbull.com. Available at:
https://www.redbull.com/int-en/tags/esports [Accessed 14 Oct. 2017].
Sharma, A., Bajpai, P., Singh, S. and Khatter, K., 2017. Virtual Reality: Blessings and Risk
Assessment. arXiv preprint arXiv:1708.09540.
Shea, R., Fu, D. and Liu, J., 2015, March. Towards bridging online game playing and live
broadcasting: Design and optimization. In Proceedings of the 25th ACM Workshop on
Network and Operating Systems Support for Digital Audio and Video (pp. 61-66). ACM.
Tassi, P., 2013. Talking Livestreams, eSports and the Future of Entertainment with
Twitch. Forbes. Retrieved January, 9, p.2017.