Apex Legends Global Series has announced a partnership with Lenovo Legion, a gaming subsidiary of multinational technology company Lenovo Group Limited.
The deal covers tournaments through March 2021 and sees Lenovo Legion become the exclusive PC and monitor partner of the competition.
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As part of the deal, Lenovo will provide more than 200 Lenovo Legion desktops and monitors for players at all upcoming Apex Legends Global Series Majors. In addition, Lenovo Legion laptops will be provided for caster desks.
The 2020 Apex Legends Global Series season will feature more than $3 million (GBP2.28 million) in prize money, with the first of four Majors set to take place on March 13-15th in Arlington, Texas. An online qualifying tournament for the event is set to take place later this month.
John Nelson, John Nelson, Sr. Director & Commissioner, Apex Legends Competitive Gaming at EA told The Esports Observer: “We recently eclipsed 70M players, which is great for being able to build a fertile esports ecosystem. I think that obviously EA, Respawn and Lenovo all recognize the potential opportunity in working together.”
On the other side of the deal, Matt Bereda, Vice President of Global Consumer Marketing at Lenovo also shared his excitement: “Now all of a sudden the gaming experiences are quite a ways distant from my Atari days that I grew up with. It’s a lot of fun for people and helping people activate their passions is what’s important.”
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According to TEO, the provision of gaming devices is only one part of the partnership agreement. Product and logo placements will reportedly feature throughout esports arenas, while there will also be opportunities for fans to try out Lenovo Legion computers themselves through onsite activations. Additional content and how it could be integrated into hardware or social media advertising is another topic that is up for discussion between the companies.
Bereda continued: “We’re just real excited about talking about actually what we could do with EA. What really helped them to rise to the surface for us as being a key partner is being able to explore things beyond just the base event.”
Esports Insider says: Apex Legends has solidified itself as a major player in the gaming scene, so an exclusive deal with a major hardware provider is almost par for the course. However, the sheer scale of the deal is impressive, and the possibility of future Apex Legends content being integrated into Lenovo PCs is an intriguing prospect.