Eight Esports World Cup Sponsors Not Shown in Chinese Broadcasts

Key insights

6 takeaways

01
Eight major Esports World Cup (EWC) sponsors—Brans, KitKat, LG UltraGear, Adidas, Qiddiya, Dr. Sulaiman AL Habib Medical Group, Pepsi, and Sony—were excluded from Chinese broadcasts of the League of Legends competition.
02
The only sponsor featured during the Chinese League of Legends broadcasts was the Saudi Arabian telecommunications company STC Group.
03
The omission of sponsor branding extended beyond China, with reports indicating that Vietnamese, French, and Arabic broadcasts also failed to display EWC sponsor logos.
04
The EWC League of Legends grand final between T1 and TOP Esports reached over 1.1 million peak viewers, representing a significant loss of brand exposure for the excluded partners in the Chinese market.
05
While the cause remains unconfirmed, industry observers suggest the issue may stem from conflicts of interest, miscommunication between Riot Games/Tencent and the EWC, or sponsorship agreements that exclude the Mainland China market.
06
The issue appears isolated to League of Legends, as EWC Dota 2 competitions in China utilized direct English-language feeds from Twitch, which included the standard sponsor branding.

Summary

The Esports World Cup (EWC) experienced a significant loss in brand exposure during its July 2024 League of Legends competition, as eight major sponsors were excluded from Chinese broadcasts. While international viewers on platforms like Twitch saw full branding, Chinese streams—including those on Kuaishou, Huya, DouYu, and Bilibili—omitted logos for Adidas, Brans, Dr. Sulaiman AL Habib Medical Group, KitKat, LG UltraGear, Pepsi, Qiddiya, and Sony. The only sponsor featured in the Chinese broadcast was the Saudi Arabian telecom company STC Group.

The scope of this issue extends beyond Mainland China, as subsequent reporting confirmed that sponsor branding was also absent from Vietnamese, French, and Arabic language broadcasts. The exact cause remains unconfirmed, though industry analysts suggest the discrepancy may stem from conflicts of interest, miscommunication between tournament organizers and local operators like TJ Sports and VSPO, or sponsorship agreements that simply did not extend to specific regional markets.

The impact of this omission is notable given the high viewership of the event; the grand final between T1 and TOP Esports reached over 1.1 million peak concurrent viewers, excluding the Chinese audience. While the investigation into the root cause is ongoing, the situation highlights the complexities of managing global sponsorship activations across fragmented regional broadcasting networks. Currently, it is unclear if this pattern of exclusion will persist for other esports titles featured in the tournament, as the production methods for different games vary significantly.