As esports grows in popularity, so too does the link between established sports organisations and their simulation games.

Aside from football teams and leagues hiring their own players or creating their own leagues on FIFA 18 and Pro Evolution Soccer, we’ve recently seen the NHL take a proactive approach to creating their own league.

In football, we’ve seen the Bundesliga and Ligue 1 take an interest in creating leagues in which their clubs are participating, whilst MLS and La Liga in Spain are taking part as feeder leagues for FIFA’s eWorld Cup, which takes place this summer.

This week, it has been reported that La Liga’s competition now has a title sponsor, with McDonald’s coming on board to lend its name to the league’s tournament, which will become the McDonald’s Virtual La Liga. That’s in addition to a host of other sponsors and partners such as department store El Corte Ingles, Hyundai, Allianz and Orange, as well as media partners Mediapro. The league is played on FIFA18 on both PlayStation and Xbox.

Esports is becoming a billion pound industry, and its growth is seeing sponsors flock on board. La Liga is just one example in just one league of one particular esports title, but the number of hugely recognisable names who are now sponsors of the league is striking. In a way, though, that only matches the name recognition that La Liga and its clubs have, too.

Join us at Gfinity in London on March 27th for our expose event on esports: it promises to be an unmissable evening.