PSG and Talon Esports extend partnership ahead of MSI 2023 opening match

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Paris Saint-Germain aka PSG and Talon Esports have extended their multi-year team partnership agreement for a further three years ahead of MSI 2023 in London.

Their Taiwanese League of Legends team will be kicking off the MSI play-ins stage from 1pm BST on Tuesday May 2nd 2023 as they go up against Japan’s Detonation FocusMe (DFM).

In a press release, PSG and Talon Esports said the decision highlights French football club Paris Saint-Germain’s continued involvement in esports, after having been the first major European soccer club to invest in it since 2016, when PSG said they have an esports budget of millions per season.

As part of the partnership, PSG and Talon Esports will continue to work on the League of Legends license and will participate in the Pacific Championship Series across Asia under the tag “PSG Talon”.

The joint organisation will ‘prioritise talent development and an athletic approach to competitive gaming, while also pursuing commercial partnerships and regionally tailored content creation’.

The PSG Talon team were also getting in the British spirit for MSI London with some tea:

PSG and Talon Esports on the renewed partnership

Nadia Benmokhtar, Head of Brand Development at Paris Saint-Germain, said: “We are thrilled to renew our partnership with Talon and continue our journey in League of Legends. Esports remains a core pillar of our brand diversification strategy and this partnership further strengthens our visibility in key markets and in front of non-traditional football audiences globally”.

Sean Zhang, CEO of Talon Esports, added: “Partnering with a club like PSG means taking our game to new heights. We are excited for the next three years and look forward to the success we can create together.”

Paris Saint-Germain are a major sports club in France and one of the top global sports brands in the world with almost 190m followers. Their PSG Esports arm has teams around the world competing in LoL, Dota 2, Fortnite, Arena of Valor, Rainbow Six Siege and FIFA.

Talon Esports are an organisation established in 2017 that compete in multiple games including League of Legends, Overwatch and more. They are headquartered in Hong Kong with regional offices in Thailand, Taiwan, the Philippines and South Korea.

PSG and Talon Esports now have their sights set on MSI 2023 this week. Read more content in our MSI 2023 coverage hub.

Dom Sacco

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.