HTC moves into e-sports with team sponsorships

HTC has been in the mobile game for years, but lately we’ve seen the company moving outside of smartphones and tablets a bit, launching the RE camera and partnering with Under Armour for a fitness product. Now HTC has reached an agreement that adds to its list of non-mobile efforts.

HTC is now the sponsor of Team Liquid, Team SoloMid, and Cloud9, three e-sports teams that compete in games like Counter-Stike: Global Offensive and League of Legends. Team Liquid’s announcement of the HTC sponsorship also mentions that HTC has two E-sports Project Managers named Walter Wang and Thomas Chen.

Details on what’ll come of HTC’s sponsorships are still up in the air for now, but Cloud9’s announcement does contain a couple of hints. The team says that it’ll be working with HTC and the other two teams on an “exciting new video series” and that we’ll have chances to get “some amazing new HTC devices”.

At the end of 2014, an HTC exec teased that the company’s 2015 product portfolio will be its “best ever” and that HTC has “some huge surprises” planned. This e-sports sponsorship could be part of HTC’s big 2015, giving it some cred in the e-sports scene and possibly give it an opportunity to expand its non-mobile offerings with some sort of e-sports or gaming-related product.

What do you think of HTC’s decision to sponsor multiple e-sports teams? Do you think that we'll ever see any gaming products from HTC?