The US Navy will spend its advertising budget on esports

Esports is becoming too big to ignore. With luxury brands like Louis Vuitton, traditional teams like PSG and celebrities like Drake investing in or owning a part of esports teams, the lines between traditional sports and esports are blurring. The latest investor comes as a bit of surprise: The US Navy.  

According to a report by USNI, the US Navy has decided to allocate a whopping 97% of its advertising funds into digital marketing, which mainly includes esports and YouTube. That is nearly $33 million for the year 2020. The rest 3 percent or $1 million will be spent on ads on billboards and spots on local radio stations. That means there will be no US Navy advertisement on TV. 

The target audience for the advertisements is young people within the ages of 17 and 28. “One thing we did learn, is paying for a lot of TV ads in the middle of Super Bowl games,” Vice Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Robert Burke said. “ target audience is not watching that.”  

The report said that the basis of this decision was the 2018 Syracuse University study which said that by 2021, esports will have 84 million viewers, which surpasses all the traditional sports except for NFL.  

But this isn’t the only way the US Navy is looking to use esports to recruit more young people into its ranks. The US Navy has decided to hold auditions for its own esports team. The team will be comprised of Navy’s active duty recruiters. 

The US Army already has its own esports team, which competes in tournaments for Call of Duty and other games. They travel around the country and participate in various tournaments, all the while educating people about the services and telling the people about their experiences in the Army. In the past, they have also teamed up with Complexity Gaming.