North American organisation Team Liquid has announced a multi-year partnership with trading firm and market maker IMC.
The partnership will see both entities collaborate on a range of activities aimed at engaging fans and supporting the community.
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IMC will serve as a supporting partner of Liquid Hacks, a hackathon event which offers community members an opportunity to learn from and develop solutions for ‘pressing issues’ in the industry. According to the release, the trading firm will provide judges and guest speakers for Liquid Hacks, whilst also contributing to its prize pool.
Victor Goossens, Founder and Co-CEO of Team Liquid added: “At Team Liquid, we look to align with partners that not only share similar values and a love for competitive gaming, but also challenge us to think differently about how we approach things.
“We’ll work closely with IMC, both here in The Netherlands, and globally, to elevate several priority programs across fan engagement, community relations and events production. I’m personally excited for our ongoing TSL series, which they’ll help us bring to life this summer.”
The partnership will also see IMC introduce several segments, features, and awards in conjunction with the Team Liquid StarLeague, a leading Starcraft event series. Lastly, Liquid will support IMC’s philanthropic platform, Room to Read, with original streaming events, talent integrations, and financial support.
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As a result of the collaboration, IMC branding will be seen across the entirety of Liquid’s team jerseys, the extensive catalogue of which includes rosters competing in 17 different titles.
IMC CEO Rob Defares commented on the partnership in a release: “We are excited about the launch of our partnership with Team Liquid. It’s great to find an organisation that shares many of our closely-held values of creativity, teamwork, ambition, innovation and competitive drive, and we are very much looking forward to working with them to attract and foster new talent for our high performing teams.”
This is Team Liquid’s first agreement with a major financial brand. IMC joins the likes of Alienware, Bud Light and Twitch, among others, as partners of the esports organisation.
Esports Insider says: The partnership is intended to open up a new avenue for IMC to connect with the ‘online-first’ generation, as is typically the case with many non-endemic deals we see. It’s uplifting to see the community-focused emphasis in this agreement and we hope fans can benefit from these two parties collaborating.