Neolution Esports have signed another deal with Orange to further strengthen the relationship between the two company. We caught up with Satean Boonmanant, CEO of the Neolution group for an interview about the company's future direction.
Neolution Esports, giant Esports company in South East Asia, has signed a deal with Orange's Dota 2 team to further their sponsorship.
The signings happened on the 26th of April at Neolution Esport Stadium. The event started out with an exhibition match between Neolution.Orange and top Thai team, MiTH-Trust followed by a speech by Satean Boonmanant, CEO of Neolution Group. The contract to strengthen the bonds between Neolution and Orange was signed shortly after.
We caught up with Boonmanant to ask him on what the deal is all about and what is next for Neolution. Boonmanant also mentioned that included in the deal is an all-expensed paid travel to The International 3 alongside the Neolution.Orange team.
Interview with Satean Boonmanant
Hello Satean. Neolution is obviously quite a big sponsor of esports in the SEA scene. Why sponsor so many teams? What is Neolution's highest achieving team?
Hello Gosugamers, it's a pleasure to be interviewed here. When it comes to sponsoring teams, the bigger portion of the resources are allocated to Thailand while 30% of that goes to teams overseas. We do have quite a fair bit of teams spanning six countries and sponsoring more than ten games. The first reason is because we have a real passion in Esports and I think the way to make Esports resemble real sports, is to idolized these players. The second reason is due to the fact that we have our own gears now and the best way to market to young gamers is Esports Marketing.
What is Neolution's highest achieving team?
Our highest achieving team is NeoES.MRR who dominated the Heroes of Newerth scene in South East Asia. They got fourth place in GSL and finished fifth in Dreamhack Summer 2012. Obviously the other high achieving team is our Dota 2 team, Neolution.Orange.
It came to our knowledge that Neolution have signed a deal with Orange recently. What is the partnership about?
Mr. Frank (Orange CEO) is a great man. He will change the team tag of the Dota 2 team into Orange Neolution Esports and will promote our brand through the Orange.Neolution Tournament. Orange's world class players will also be our brand ambassaddor. Besides that, Orange and us will be partners in many events and other business lines such as Internet cafe in the future. Nevertheless, we will also be promoting Orange a lot more in Thailand and every other SEA countries.
Tell us a little more about Orange Neolution Tournament
The Orange.Neolution Tournament is a Dota 2 Rookie Cup we are planning to host in Malaysia. As the name goes, it is for amateur teams and we are keen to look out for uprising stars.
So will we have Mushi and co travelling all around SEA to promote you guys now? What about their training time?
Yes, they will. We will have some of our new gears packaged and tailor-made for them such as the Orange mousepad or perhaps Mushi's choice of mouse. I don't know if they will have time to train since they will be travelling a lot with us and partying. (Laughs)
Speaking of Internet Cafe, I'm sure we asked Matthias Beyer about this but when can I see a Neolution stadium on my doorsteps?
Our Internet Cafe in Thailand is called Neolution Esports Stadium and we have no immediate plans to expand it into other countries. I'm sorry about that mate. The purpose of this stadium is to be made as our main headquarters in Thailand and also for the community to see Esports and Internet cafe in different light. the whole project cost about $700,000.
You guys are famous for sponsoring many teams, are the investment paying back yet?
As for returns on investment in the form of cash, we don't have any plans to get them back. However, the promotion of our brand and making South East Asia one of the best Esports scene is worth every cents we invested in.
How will you guys react when China steps up their game. I heard ACE is going to announce something big really soon.
Personally, I think China's move is good and very based on grooming the players to gain more social acceptance. Neolution would very much love to be a part of the Chinese scene be it, sponsoring and Esports team, providing gaming gears or setting up an Esports Stadium.
Are you proud of your Dota 2 teams on being invited to The International 3 main event and qualifiers?
Yes, of course! I feel good to be a part of such a great team and I have Mr. Frank to thank for that. I will do whatever it takes to support both the teams.
If I'm not mistaken, the Orange team was over in Thailand during the announcement and you guys were partying? What was the immediate reaction after that
Frank, the Orange squad, some of our partners and I were out having dinner and having some drinks when Nico from RGN sent me a message regarding the invite. After Frank and the team saw the message, they just went bonkers and I truly enjoyed that moment.
Congratulations on that anyway. In any case, that's the end of the interview. Would you like to say something to all the Neolution fans all around the world?
Hi guys, we are a small company from Thailand with a big hope and passion in Esports. We are currently producing our own gaming gears and will be looking to set up our company in Hong Kong. Our players will be touring SEA in the near future to showcase some of our products and we hope you can give us some support. Besides that, we will also bring a few lucky SEA gamers alongside Neolution.Orange to The International 3. You can follow up on this on our Facebook page here. Once again, thanks for the interview Gosugamers. We will be the sponsors for the upcoming Gosucups.
