Empire Ch. 5 - Developing a Global Vision

As far as Global marketing is concerned, licensing and franchising are the primary tools used by Empire to conduct international business.

Licensing: where licencors give legal right to other firms to use its trademarks, patent (s), or in this case, Empire's players. If you look at the picture below, you will see a direct example of what I am speaking about. Qanba is a Chinese company that makes this particular brand of sticks. Qanba and another third party company paid Empire in order to have the right to use Empires name on their sticks.

Again always referring back to my previous post as they all tie into one another, you should have read that Empire is a development organization. As players in Empire rise in value, they are often approached by sponsors.

Sponsors: A person or group (company) that provides funds for an activity. In many cases we see sponsors paying for all or part of a concert, sporting event etc. In order for you to fully grasp where I am going with this, you need to think of gaming as a sport, with no differences but the sport itself.

The sponsor then has to negotiate with Empire. In a sense now you can say the players are being leased to the whatever company by chance needs them. The services normally performed by the players and Empire as whole usually range anywhere from marketing the sponsors products or their brand-name. As of recent more and more players are being sponsored to simply show up at events, and commentate entire tournaments.