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GamingLawPills No. 33 brings news on the deal between Luckbox and MoneyMatrix in the eSports betting sector and on the Nike League of Legends sponsorship deal.
Luckbox eSports betting deal with MoneyMatrix
The eSports betting platform Luckbox recently announced a partnership with payment processor MoneyMatrix. According to press releases, Luckbox will create an eSports dedicated platform that will allow players to bet on CSGO, Dota 2, League of Legends and on other lawful eSports events. Users will be allowed to deposit and withdraw using a variety of popular and local payment methods.
In the world of eSports, betting has a huge, untapped business potential. However, compared to normal sports betting, the eSports betting sector in under-represented, suffering from transparency and reliability issues thus lacking of an adequate betting-fan base.
MoneyMatrix CEO Sandra Barton highlighted the potential of the eSports betting sector stating that they are looking forward to working with Luckbox to help them achieve their ambition of being among the global leaders in esports betting: “Luckbox puts great emphasis on doing things right, with integrity, security and safety at the heart of what they do and that chimes perfectly with our values at MoneyMatrix“.
We already discussed about the betting license regime applicable to eSports in my “Top 3 predictions on eSports for 2019” and in the article from Giulio Coraggio “eSports tournaments limited by Italian prize promotion and gambling rules?”
Nike sponsorship deal with the League of Legends Pro League
Nike signed a four-year sponsorship deal with the League of Legends Pro eSports League that will take place in China, agreeing to supply all squads with clothing and footwear starting this year. According to the sponsorship deal, Nike will supply every squad with casual clothing and eventually professional jerseys for the eSports team.
This agreement is relevant also because focuses the attention on the need in digital competitions of eSports to deal with the players’ image rights, the teams and sport events’ distinctive signs and rights.
As to the image rights of a single athlete, based on the case law and practice deriving from sports teams, it shall be considered that, in case the player wears a team official t-shirt which creates a connection between his image and the one of the team, the authorization to use the image of the player for commercial purposes should, generally, be granted not only by the single athlete, but by the team as well. However, it shall be assessed whether the same principles are applicable to eSports.
All the companies approaching this phenomenon shall therefore bear in mind the above also in light of the fact that beyond simply supplying clothes and shoes – as in the Nike’s sponsorship deal – operators usually plan to work with eSports athletes to custom-design training programs and to help them improve in skills and popularity.
You may find interesting on the topic the article from Laura Gastaldi “eSports – Advergaming and the new frontier of advertising law and image rights“.
