President Park Jung-ho of SK Telecom shakes hands with SK Telecom CEO Park Jung-ho, left, shakes hands with Tucker Roberts, who supervises Comcast's esports business, after signing a strategic partnership for global esports collaboration at the Renaissance Hotel in Barcelona, Spain. (Photo: SK Telecom)

SK Telecom has agreed to establish a global esports joint venture with Comcast Spectacor, on the sidelines of the 2019 Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, on Feb. 24.

The newly created joint venture, to be named T1 Entertainment & Sports, will include the ultra successful SK Telecom T1 League of Legends (LoL) Champions Korea (LCK) team, as well as teams in competitive gaming segments that include Fortnite, PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, Super Smash Brothers, Hearthstone and Apex Legends.

SK Telecom, Korea’s largest telecom service provider, and Comcast, an America global media group, have joined forces in the esports market, which is forecast to see a high growth potential. Esports is a blue-ocean market that is growing with an annual growth rate of 30 percent to 40 percent with a focus in the United States, Asia and Europe.

According to a report by Goldman Sachs, the value of the global esports market is predicted to surge to $2.963 billion (some 3.3 trillion won) by 2022 with an annual average growth rate of 35 percent. If the gaming streaming segment with 200 million viewers is counted, the value of the related industries was estimated to grow to 12 trillion won last year. Of late, esports enjoys popularity to the extent that viewers are expanded to younger and middle-aged people.

The deal has been made possible as SK Telecom and Comcast seem to be on the same wavelength in their business interests and visions. An SK Telecom official said both companies shared the view that the esports market will be expanded to the media sector and there are many business areas in which their collaboration will have synergetic effects.

In particular, Comcast paid attention to the success story of SK Telecom T1 League of Legends (LoL) Champions Korea (LCK) team, and the company saw the T1 brand in the esports segment as one that could create more values.

In a related development, SK Telecom signed an MOU to strengthen strategic partnerships in gaming and esports businesses with Singtel, Singapore’s biggest telecom service provider.

Singtel is Singapore’s No. 1 telecom service provider in mobile and wire communications sectors, which posted 19 trillion won in sales and saw capitalization stand at 40 trillion won in 2018. The company had about 700 million subscribers in 21 countries across the globe, including Singapore, Australia and Africa. Singtel specializes in businesses such as high-speed Internet, IPTV, mobile telecom, other diverse telecom and media services, and the company is accelerating efforts to expand new businesses such as gaming and cloud.

Under the deal, SK Telecom and Singtel will closely cooperate in the development of the Asian gaming and esports industries the two companies lead. Both sides agreed to collaborate in the development of gaming content and distribution, esports platforms and new gaming/media services.

SK Telecom expects the agreement to serve as an opportunity for the Korean telecom service provider to flesh out its esports products and global gaming solution businesses, thus contributing to not just ramping up leadership in the gaming industry, but also exploring joint business opportunities in the Asian markets to drive new growth.

SK Telecom is also expected to gain more leverage in the global spreading of 5G media solutions, including VR/AR in accordance with the agreement. SK Telecom and Singtel will exchange information related to gaming content and media technologies they own, and they will likely acceleration mutual collaboration like support for global market entry.

SK Telcom and Singtel plan to cooperate in the nurturing of the global gaming ecosystem. The two plans to establish a cooperative regime related to the whole process ranging from gaming content development to market entry through cooperation with global promising gaming companies with a good potential. Ha Hyung-il, head of SK Telecom’s Corporate Development Center, said, “Through cooperation with Singtel, Singapore’s biggest telecom service provider, the two companies are expected to provide differentiated and innovative gaming content to their customers.”

They plan to provide benefits to Asian game users and lead the advancement of the gaming and esports industries by jointly exploring new gaming business opportunities, he added.