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Everyone has either heard of or knows about TikTok. The short-form video content sharing platform, since its rebranding in 2017, has shot up in popularity amongst young Americans (aged 15-25). The platform allows users to post entertaining 15-second videos and spruce up the content with vibrant video effects, animations, and filters. Following the emergence of TikTok as a crowd favorite, it has made popular influencers out of ordinary people who just wanted to have fun while making videos.
Going Into Esports
In a bold new move, the company is looking to make an entry into the esports scene. The popular soccer simulation game, FIFA, has seen its content gain massive popularity on TikTok (with over 3 billion views to date). This has prompted the perceived need for a more direct partnership between TikTok and FIFA. As part of this partnership, the video platform’s logo will appear on the new jerseys of Tundra, a UK-based FIFA-focused esports team.
This, however, isn’t TikTok’s first esports rodeo as the company organized the first edition of the TikTok Cup earlier this year. The competition was played among college students and had a $60,000 prize pool
Speaking on the potential that the new partnership can bring for both sides, TikTok’s Head of Brand and Partnerships Marketing for Europe, Jana Ulaite, said:
Esports has found a natural home on TikTok, with gaming content already proving to be hugely popular in our community. We can’t wait to see what team Tundra has in store for us for FIFA 21.
Complementing that opinion and giving his own two cents on the partnership, Michael Mulro, the co-founder of Tundra, added:
FIFA has over 3.3 billion views on TikTok to date. The appetite for esports, and particularly FIFA content is already proven, so the partnership is a natural fit.
About Tundra
Tundra is one of the newcomers to the UK’s rapidly growing FIFA-based esports scene. Formed in 2019, the team has some great players on its roster. In this regard, one standout is Musaed Al-Dossary, 2018’s FIFA eWorld Cup Champion.
The team has managed to score some other high-profile partnerships in the past. Just recently, it brought on Italian sportswear manufacturer, Kappa, as its official jersey and tracksuit partner.
Is TikTok Trying to Rebrand?
It’s no news that over the past year, there have been a lot of controversies surrounding the complicity of TIkTok as a Chinese mass-surveillance tool. The platform has faced a lot of criticism mostly due to the fact that ByteDance, its parent company, has long been strongly linked with the Chinese government and its effort at cyber-surveillance targeted especially at the United States.
TikTok’s fate in the United States recently received some respite as a judge ordered a delay on the ruling to ban the app from Apple’s App Store and Google’s Play Store. Meanwhile, however, ByteDance is hurrying through a deal with Walmart and Oracle that could prove to US administrators that the data of millions of Americans, that are stored on TikTok’s servers, is indeed safe from unscrupulous use. This just might allow the company’s app to remain downloadable in the US.