Cannabis Company Sponsors Upcoming E-Sports Competition

The realm of e-sports has been growing exponentially over the past few years. Popular competitive video games such as League of Legends, Halo 5 and Call of Duty bring in countless gamers—but that’s not where most of the money comes from. Sponsors come from all industries, such as from computer hardware company, Razer, and energy drink companies like RedBull, are just a couple of examples of the brands that have reached out to sponsor teams and game competitions. Now, Weedmaps is joining the roster of well-known brands interested in sponsoring e-sports competitions.

Just like any sponsors, their brand name and logos are used on banners and team shirts, showing off their brand to gamers both watching the competition live, as well as countless gamers who watch the match from home via Twitch, a popular video game streaming site.

According to Kotaku, Weedmaps sponsored a match a Halo: CE Beach LAN in Tampa, Florida a few months back, and also recently hosted a “Weedmaps Gaming House” in Anaheim, California, which offered a place for Halo 5 tournament competitors a place to train. The company’s newest sponsorship will be the Smash Summit 3, which is one of the most popular Super Smash Bros. annual tournaments that is expected to draw approximately 70,000 viewers. Kotaku reports that Weedmaps is openly beginning to seek out more sponsorships in the realm of e-sports.

The sponsorship of the Super Smash Bros. tournament by Weedmaps has not gone unnoticed though, especially since the game, made by Nintendo, is rated “E” for everyone. In fact, most Nintendo games are labeled as family games and feature familiar cartoon characters such as Mario and Princess Peach, keeping all content neutral and friendly towards gamers of all ages.

In a recent interview with Yahoo! Esports, Weedmaps representative Cody Dragon (@Cody_Dragon), who previously competed in Halo tournaments, explained the company’s reason for e-sports sponsorship, “So we do make the differentiation between e-sports and gaming. Now, we think that gaming is the fun stuff and e-sports is the gritty part, right? So, we talk about integration, the e-sports, [and] we do think that, myself personally and a lot of our colleagues, believe that there are some benefits to be had between medical marijuana and competitive video game playing. Athletes will use marijuana as a tool to relax, and we do believe that because of the isolation that players go through metaphysically, the mind is the tool and the muscle that we’re using. We do think that marijuana can aide in the relaxation and the improvement of the mind through video gaming. So we kind of see it as an easy crossover.”

In the past, companies like YouPorn had attempted to sponsor an e-sports team, but the team was banned by the Electronic Sports League due to the obviously controversial content of the company’s brand. Bud Light currently has an e-sports team of 21-and-over-only gamers, so it’s interesting, but not entirely unexpected, to see adult alcohol and cannabis brands contributing towards e-sports.

“Well I think our department says a lot about us,” Dragon continued. “Myself, I was a competitive video game player, so I can kind of come from the player’s side of things, and I think that’s where some of these other non-endemic brands faltered. It was the fact that, and this is the buzzword, the millennial marketing of e-sports—I don’t think they truly understood the market before entering, so I think that in and of itself gives us a huge leg up. And we also do things that, just the philosophy and the culture of marijuana that differs from alcohol, the culture of alcohol is very different from the culture of pornography,” Dragon said.

Other adult industries have found their way into the e-sports business, so it’s no surprise that cannabis too has joined the game. It will be interesting to see how the e-sports community responds to Weedmaps’ sponsoring, and although it is the first sponsorships of its kind, it is most likely not the last.