As we all know, esports has undergone tremendous growth over the last five years – more so since the pandemic. With that in mind, many betting and gaming companies have opted to expand their presence within the esports space – for Better Collective, this came in the form of its FUTBIN acquisition. 

Henrik Lykkesteen, SVP of Esports, uses this month’s Better Collective Spotlight to discuss the company’s plans to expand its esports exposure even further before explaining how the addition of FUTBIN has proved to be a ‘synergistic bolt-on’.

For those that might not know, can you introduce FUTBIN?

FUTBIN is the world’s leading esports media brand related to the esoccer game, FIFA. With ~50 million monthly visits on its website and ~3 million daily active users on its proprietary app, FUTBIN provides a major player base vital insights into ‘FIFA Ultimate Team’ (also known as FUT), which is the most popular game mode within FIFA. 

Why was FUTBIN selected as the newest brand to join the BC portfolio?

FUTBIN has been acquired as the newest brand to BC’s portfolio due to its best-in-breed technology, unique FIFA position, as well as unparalleled engagement, stickiness and loyalty among its user base. Furthermore, FUTBIN is a great strategic and synergistic bolt-on to BC’s existing esports portfolio and a clear testament to BC’s ambition to further expand its exposure to the esports vertical.

How will the acquisition of FUTBIN help BC to tap into new audiences of esports players?

FUTBIN targets a global and well-defined audience recognised as Generation Z and millennials, a segment known as difficult to reach through traditional media channels. FUTBIN’s audience keeps growing organically year on year as the FIFA audiences steadily grow globally. 

Together with the audiences of the remaining BC esports portfolio, BC is now able to offer its portfolio of global retail and consumer partners exposure to a significant volume of high-value audiences across the globe and as such create true partner value.

At the time of the acquisition, it was noted that BC plans to work with FUTBIN to develop products and services from a joint infrastructure. Can you expand on what this might entail? 

BC’s existing brand portfolio is operated through a joint BC infrastructure, ensuring that revenue and cost synergies are effectively harvested across products and business entities. Sharing of internal know-how and operational excellence among BC’s brands are vital to the consistent and significant growth that BC’s products have steadily exhibited over the last many years. 

For a growth company such as FUTBIN, getting access to BC’s joint infrastructure and growth capacities represents a major uplift and makes it possible for FUTBIN succeeding in the various growth avenues that we have identified for FUTBIN.

Looking towards the future, how do you plan to further capitalise on the growing esports space?

BC is looking to capitalise and leverage on the attractive esports market growth by keeping investing significantly into BC’s existing esports portfolio, and as such fortify its leading market positions and drive organic growth through best-in-class engagement. 

While doing so, BC expects to create significant synergies across its portfolio making it possible to scale effectively and continuously serve larger esports audiences with best-in-class engagement services and products.