What do sponsors look for in an esports team? Video interview with AOC UK sales director on their partnerships with G2, IEM, ESL and more

aoc paul butler g2 esports

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Esports News UK asks Paul Butler, the UK and Ireland regional sales director for AOC and Philips Monitors, what makes him choose to work with an esports org or sponsor over another in this video interview.

We also discuss what AOC’s partnership with G2 Esports involves, how PC gaming hardware sales are booming during lockdown, challenges of Brexit and AOC’s collaboration with Porsche Design over a new monitor for sim racers.

On AOC’s deal with G2 Esports

“It all started from the UK about 7 or 8 years ago. We had a UK team we were sponsoring and realised early on that team sponsorship was something that we should do.

We looked for a global team to partner with and originally we worked with Team Liquid for a few years, but because they were US-based, we found it was a little bit difficult. Eventually we separated company with them, they moved onto another brand and we looked for a European-based team, so we started with G2.

Our relationship with G2 has gone from strength to strength. It’s a terrific partnership. We have the shirt sponsorship and get involved with content and we also get them to look at their products, because the best feedback you get on new products are from the team.

On what they look for when partnering with someone in esports

“You want to have a team that has good management and can actually direct them.

One of the things we’ve seen is some of the teams filter out after a while, because they don’t have somebody to give them the direction to go in. They will get one or two good players, and then the whole team is resting on them.

But you want a whole team of different disciplines in different areas.

What we also do locally [in the UK], rather than sponsoring a local team now, we work with a lot of the esports organisers like ESL for example. We look at trying to help them to develop gamers, whether they’re doing an academy or something like that. Development is always something that we want to get involved in.”

On AOC’s new monitor built with Porsche Design

“We’ve worked with Porsche Design now for five or six years and have made a few products with them.

This time what we wanted to do was something a little more special – we wanted to make a flagship product with them. So we looked at a brand new 27-inch 240hz product designed by Porsche Design. They’ve done a lot of work designing this and helping us launch it as well.

The G2 team have also been playing with this monitor and giving us their feedback too.”

Read more: AOC and Porsche Design target sim racers with new 27-inch 2K curved gaming monitor

On PC and monitor sales booming during lockdown

“Mobile computing has really rocketed since March, and gaming has also really taken off.

I did a short analysis a while ago on 144hz monitors. When I looked back to last year, at the beginning of the year, you were looking at probably 10 or 12,000 units a month sold in the UK market. Now, it’s about 25 to 30,000 units per month.

So it’s a market that’s tripled in size. And if people are buying monitors, they’re also buying graphics cards and more. The new consoles from Microsoft and Sony are here now too, and that’s just adding to it.

We’ve launched a record number of products this year.

People ask ‘why is everything out of stock?’ and it’s because the manufacturers can’t keep up with demand. The demand year-on-year is about 100% up, globally, on monitors.”

Check out the full AOC esports interview on YouTube here.

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