One of Poland’s best known bookmakers STS has sponsored the esports team Izako Boars.
Izako Boars currently has a roster in CS:GO.
We spoke to STS’ Lukasz Swierk and enquired as to why the operator has decided to sponsor a team in esports: “It’s another milestone in our long-term strategy. In 2014 we decided to extend our offer to esports. Then we started working on dedicated part of the site, a unique event calendar and we began hiring people from the esports world who let us better understand this dynamic and the exciting communities within it.
“Naturally we became a leader with the widest pre-match and live offer in Poland, live streams without delays and focus on esports communication channels. Now is the time to use our experience from traditional sports sponsorship.”
As to why they established a partnership with Izako Boars, Swierk noted: “Izako Boars is a pretty young organisation but they’re a very well known team in Poland. We noticed their ability to combine significant results with huge media potential.”
On a global scale, and in part of course due to the brand name, Team Kinguin are probably the best known Polish esports team. Swierk also discussed how much of a key market esports has become for STS. He stated: “Comparing 2014 to 2016 we observed a 313% wager growth on esports markets. It looks promising and our goal is to become the “first choice bookmaker” for everybody in Poland interested in betting on esports.
This is of course is far from the first team and bookmaker sponsorship; we’ve seen Betway’s major sponsorship of NiP, multiple team sponsorships from GG Bet including Na’Vi, Alliance, Fnatic, and more. This is however STS’ first foray into the team sponsorship space. The bookmaker is well known in Poland, it has both an online and retail presence and recently expanded with the acquisition of Czech software provider Greep.
STS join Sprite and Hylo-Care as the team’s key sponsors.
Esports Insider says: Another igaming company gets well involved in esports and steps in as a team sponsor. STS has experience in sponsoring teams in traditional sports such as the football club Lech Poznan, and whilst we don’t know the full details of this deal with the size of STS in Poland, and the fact they’re only sponsoring the one team, we can assume it’s a healthy number. This should help Izako Boars push on in CS:GO.