Oil companies, petrostates, airlines and carmakers are among the big polluters bombarding the esports industry with adverts, a study has found.
Esports, short for electronic sports, are competitive video games watched by spectators, with multiplayer games such as League of Legends and Defense of the Ancients 2 attracting peak viewer figures in the millions.
The campaign group Badvertising counted at least 33 large-scale deals that carbon-intensive companies have struck with the booming industry since 2017.
Most of the deals the researchers found were made with carmakers. A further five were made with fossil fuel companies, three with airlines, two with petrostates and two with the US military.
“Our research shows that polluting companies facing the mounting pressure to move away from fossil fuels are doubling down on esports sponsorship to maintain influence,” said Andrew Simms, a co-founder of Badvertising.
The first Esports World Cup draws to a close in Saudi Arabia on Saturday. The oil-rich kingdom will host the inaugural esports Olympics next year, the International Olympic Committee announced last month.
Simms said it would be “game over” for the industry if such events were used to make polluters more acceptable.
Climate-damaging companies have long sought to improve their public image by sponsoring sporting events. They are now also looking to the fast-growing esports industry, which has an estimated half a billion viewers and is particularly popular among young people.
Simms compared the companies and governments to “griefers” – players who go out of their way to harm others – and their sponsorship of esports to “cheesing”, a way of abusing the mechanisms of a game that falls just short of cheating.
The oil company Shell has come under fire from climate activists for partnering with gamers playing Fortnite, one of the world’s most popular video games, to showcase its “ultimate road trips” promotion.
Based on a virtual Shell-branded island, the campaign features statements such as “Fuel up at Shell with Shell V-Power NiTRO+ premium gasoline and feel your engine roar” and “Share your coolest screenshots using #ShellRoadTrips and get featured by your favourite gamers”.
Saudi Arabia launched the Saudi Esports Federation with sponsorship from its national oil company Aramco. The United Arab Emirates and Qatar have followed with the Dubai esports and gaming festival and a partnership between Qatar’s Quest Esports and the French football club Paris Saint-Germain, sponsored by the state-owned Qatar Airways.
The crown prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman, said last year he did not care about accusations that he was “sportswashing” his country’s human rights abuses with investments in sport.
“If sportwashing is going to increase my GDP by way of 1% then I will continue doing sportwashing,” Prince Mohammed told Fox News.
Brand sponsorship of sporting events is one of the most trusted advertising channels, according to research from the audience analytics company Nielsen, ranking above adverts on television, social media and influencers.
The UN secretary general, António Guterres, criticised the fossil fuel industry’s disinformation campaigns in June and called for a ban on their advertising.
