The third racket of the world came to e‑sports: Daniil Medvedev became a co-owner of the e‑sports team

Russ­ian ten­nis play­er Dani­il Medvedev has become a co-own­er of the M80 esports team.

On the social net­works of the eSports team “M80» a mes­sage appeared that a Russ­ian ten­nis play­er had become its co-own­er Dani­il Medvedevthird rack­et in the world.

The orga­niz­ers of the largest eSports cham­pi­onships now are: Dota And CS:GO.

“We are pleased to announce that Dani­il Medvedev, world ten­nis star and cur­rent world num­ber three, has joined the M80 own­er­ship group. As we con­tin­ue to build a world-class esports orga­ni­za­tion, Dani­il is ener­gized by our vision by join­ing us.”reads the offi­cial mes­sage.

E‑Sports Club “M80» has exist­ed for 2 years and takes part in CS:GO tour­na­ments. The club is based in the USA.

In par­tic­u­lar, Medvedev’s esports team has ros­ters in the fol­low­ing games: Counter-Strike 2, Rain­box Six and VALORANT.

Founder “M80” Mar­co Mero and the Russ­ian ten­nis play­er met at the US Open this fall.

Cre­ator “M80” Mar­co Mero told how he man­aged to attract the leg­endary ath­lete to the team:

“We con­nect­ed through mutu­al friends who knew about Daniil’s pas­sion for eSports, as well as our growth as an eSports orga­ni­za­tion. We knew that Dani­il was a pas­sion­ate Rain­bow Six Siege play­er, where he achieved good results.

I came to see him play US Open in Sep­tem­ber, and found a com­mon lan­guage with him. Things moved quick­ly from there,” Mar­co said.

“I’m look­ing for­ward to con­tribut­ing to the growth of the club and pro­vid­ing fans with more ways to inter­act with M80,” Medvedev said, as quot­ed by the team on social media X (for­mer­ly Twit­ter).

Esports has become a source of big money — an investment in the future

Over the past year, the Russ­ian eSports mar­ket alone grew by 42% and is already esti­mat­ed at 12.7 mil­lion dol­lars.

Audi­ence loy­al­ty to eSports brands and part­ners is one of the rea­sons for such a sharp growth in the mar­ket. Ana­lyt­i­cal agency Nielsen Sports sug­gest­ed that quar­ter The Russ­ian esports audi­ence is loy­al to brands and peo­ple invest­ing in esports, and is ready to choose their prod­ucts among oth­ers.

“For me, eSports is def­i­nite­ly a sport”
Daniil Medvedev

Dani­il Medvedev Russ­ian ten­nis play­er

Hence the high return on invest­ment: for one invest­ed ruble, investors receive three.

Anoth­er rea­son the indus­try is attrac­tive to spon­sors is “a game for a long time”

The rel­a­tive­ly young audi­ence of com­put­er game fans pro­vides brands with the oppor­tu­ni­ty to cre­ate a base of loy­al cus­tomers in advance, before this audi­ence has the abil­i­ty to pay. In a few years, they will become even more active, and most impor­tant­ly, sol­vent, and will already have sta­ble loy­al­ty to the e‑sports team.

The ten­nis play­er pre­vi­ous­ly spoke about his pas­sion for video games:

“I love PlaySta­tion because it’s com­pet­i­tive. For me, eSports is def­i­nite­ly a sport. It’s tough: you try to under­stand where your oppo­nent will be, or what he will do in FIFA in the next sec­ond in order to respond to him with some­thing.

And exact­ly the same in the oppo­site direc­tion. I like this com­po­nent, so I don’t play sto­ry games.”