VCT Team Bundle appears in Premier League stadium ahead of launch
The Premier League Club Wolverhampton Wanderers have promoted its esports teams VALORANT Champions Tour Team Capsule during its most recent match against Crystal Palace live in the arena.
VCT Bundle in the Premier League
On Saturday, the Wolves played against Crystal Palace, a direct competitor for the upper half of the table, at home. Having lost four out of the last five matches and Palace on the exact opposite streak with four victories, the match proved to be challenging.
Unfortunately for fans of the Wanderers, it went as well as their form indicated, losing 1-3 at the Molineux Stadium. Already down 0-2 before half-time, the team still took the chance to promote one of its other teams, though this time from its esports division.
As the Wolves posted on the Chinese social media platform Weibo, a large stadium screen showed its soon-to-be-available VALORANT Champions Tour team bundle, showing a virtual representation of the club's logo. For the VALORANT Champions Tour, developer Riot Games had created a partner system in four major regions (EMEA, Americas, Pacific, and China).
It engaged in profit sharing with its partners, who did not have to pay a franchise fee like other leagues formed in the mid-10s required to. Instead, the organisers have increasingly focused on creating mutually beneficial incentive structures through in-game item sales, giving a split of the revenue directly to the teams.
Various partner teams have engaged in active campaigns to boost their sales in the in-game store as a result. With the Wolves being one of the only sports-team-owning partners in the system, they are the first sports club to leverage their position in the VCT bundle sales.
What is Wolves Esports?
The Wanderers esports division has been active since January 2017, joining the Celtic eSports League for FIFA before slowly expanding internationally into other games. Wolves Esports currently fields players in ten different esports titles from PC Games such as VALORANT to mobile titles like Honor of Kings.
Despite its British roots, most of the rosters the Wolves field are from and compete in China, taking advantage of the diversified scene in the region that allows for that spread of titles across its portfolio. In titles like Street Fighter 6 and Rainbow 6 Siege, the organisation also fields European players, with both scenes having a sizeable local fanbase.
In VALORANT, Wolves Esports was accepted as one of the partner teams for VCT China, among other major Chinese esports organisations such as FunPlus Phoenix, JD Gaming, Bilibili Gaming and others. During their first Stage, the team failed to qualify for the playoffs due to a worse map score than direct competitor Nova Esports.
Stage 2 of VCT China kicks off on June 15th, though a time or match schedule has yet to be announced.
