Team:Sponsor

A sponsor is an organisation that supports an event, activity, person, or another organisation by providing goods and services to the supported party, alongside potential monetary support; in turn, the sponsored party promotes the activities of their respective sponsor.

Initially uncommon in the Smash community, a number of top players in the various games have been sponsored by various gaming organisations, as to represent their brand, promote other endeavours of the sponsor, and other similar activities. Sponsors can provide a variety of benefits to professional players; in addition to often transporting them to distant events, they can provide a number of goods to top players, such as capture cards to run Twitch or YouTube channels. Sponsorship became more common starting in 2014, particularly after the announcement of Team Liquid, a noted Dota 2 sponsor, signed top professionals KDJ and Ken Hoang in March 2014.

Although infrequent, tournaments can also be sponsored, with the sponsor providing a venue and similar logistical support to allow for tournaments to run, such as how the MLG ran many Melee tournaments, or how Nintendo provided provided a stream and a demo of Splatoon.