French football club Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) say they have ‘millions’ to invest into their eSports division each season, and have spoken about their plans in the space.
PSG signed former League of Legends pro Bora “Yellowstar” Kim as their head of eSports earlier this month, as well as FIFA players Agge Rosenmeier and DaXe.
Yellowstar will help PSG break into League of Legends, form a team and attempt to qualify for the EU LCS.
Our president Nasser Al-Khelaïfi with @YellOwStaRL0L & FIFA players @AggeRosenmeier @DaXeFiFa ! #DreamBigger ?? pic.twitter.com/96xbdAKQ2X
— PSG eSports (@PSGeSports) October 20, 2016
In an interview with French site eSports Daily News, PSG’s director of merchandising and brand diversification Fabien Allègre, said: “[Our eSports budget is] several millions per season. I have to specify though to avoid any confusion, that it of course includes wages, but wages are far from being the core of our investment.
“We want to offer the best training conditions of life for our players. This budget therefore includes everything such as the gaming house in Berlin for our team, and of course all the marketing and communication budget and the production of quality video content, which are key in eSports.
“We started to look at the subject of eSports in 2013. We observed the growth of the phenomenon and also saw the prospect for change. It’s pretty simple: we cannot ignore 250 million people, many of them millennials.”
The news follows rumours that the club have a budget of €20 million for their eSports development, which the club later said was “far, far away from the truth”.
PSG also held an ‘Ask Me Anything’ session on Reddit, with their head of social media answering fans’ questions.
“We can confirm we will have a gaming house in Berlin, starting early December,” the spokesperson said. “We want the infrastructure of PSG eSports to be as close as possible as the ones we have for our football and handball teams. That is why we hired the exact same agency to provide the same quality in term of equipment and living conditions.
“We do believe in eSports’ future, and we do think it’s the good timing for us to get into it.”
On sponsors, they added: “Even though a lot of sponsors are already interested in our eSports section, we are launching it without anyone, so we guess it proves how much we do believe into that investment.”
On the long term future, they said: “As our President Nasser Al-Khelaïfi said during our launch press conference, he always expect Paris Saint-Germain teams to win.
“We are aware the competition is tough, so for 2017 we would be very happy with a world champion title on FIFA and a qualification to LCS for our League of Legends team. As for now, we will sit on those two games.”
Some UK football clubs have signed FIFA pros – like Man City and West Ham – but none have branched into another eSports game like League of Legends just yet.
Earlier this year German club Schalke 04 branched out into League of Legends.
Schalke are holding trials this week their League of Legends team, and there are several players from the UK League scene taking part in the tryouts.
Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He graduated from Bournemouth University with a 2:1 degree in Multi-Media Journalism in 2007.
As a long-time gamer having first picked up the NES controller in the late ’80s, he has written for a range of publications including GamesTM, Nintendo Official Magazine, industry publication MCV and others. He worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation up until February 2021, when he stepped back to work full-time on Esports News UK and offer esports consultancy and freelance services. Note: Dom still produces the British Esports newsletter on a freelance basis, so our coverage of British Esports is always kept simple – usually just covering the occasional press release – because of this conflict of interest.
