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esport-news.co.uk recently sat down with PSG’s brand and business development Nadia Benmokhtar. She spoke about how PSG’s investment into eSports has already seen massive engagement in Asia, how they plan to be a part of the new generation through eSports and how they can diversify their audience.

If you are to use any of the content below, please link to https://esports-news.co.uk/ or the following article, where you can find the full interview: https://esports-news.co.uk/2025/10/20/psg-esports-interview-why-football-clubs-invest

Highlights from the inteview: 

• “At PSG, we want to be the club of the new generation — and when you say new generation, gaming has to be part of it.”(Nadia on why esports is central to PSG’s brand identity.)
• “When we entered esports, we didn’t just want to do FIFA. We wanted to be present in major games with big audiences.”(On PSG’s bold approach to expanding beyond traditional football titles.)
• “We partner with people who understand the scene — Vitality and Talon are not just teams, they’re real brands.”(On building authentic, long-term collaborations in esports.)
• “Esports allows us to diversify our audience, expand globally, and connect with communities that might not start as football fans but can still become PSG fans.”(On the club’s goal of global fan engagement through gaming.)
• “We started with esports for credibility, but now we’re exploring the entire gaming universe — from mobile titles to digital experiences like Roblox.”(On PSG’s next phase of gaming innovation.)

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PSG are using gaming to be a part of the new generation

“The goal with eSports is to grow the audience across different touchpoints, increase the brand exposure, and also diversify that audience because we want to target people that are not especially football fans at the beginning. But with esports, you can create a different kind of connection. We know that it’s a very engaged market. It’s also a way to target different territories. If you look at PSG, as an example, the French League is not very visible in Asia. So you can say that through esports, you will find a different way to connect with this type of audience. So it’s really part of the club strategy. So first, we are a multi-club sport. We have football, of course, men’s football, but we also have women’s football, handball, judo, and esports is really considered as a sports section in the club. But for sure, we aim to be at PSG, the club of the new generation. That’s our brand positioning. And when you say new generation, of course, gaming should be part of it.”

Brand recognition in Asia was key

“Asia has been one of the key territories for us since launch. We had an important partnership on the game Dota 2 with a Chinese company, LGD. So we had a very successful team with LGD, but at the end, Dota became a game very costly and to us it didn’t make sense to just spend millions in player salaries with no return on investment. With LGD, it was a new partner with a team that is already very big, and you just enter and do a big, big push. With Talon, the story was a bit different because we really grew together.”

PSG have already seen a great return on their eSports investments

“It depends on what kind of return you want. The initial objective was not pure revenue; it was more exposure. So if you look at brand exposure, fan engagement, brand coolness, yes, for sure, the return is there. If you look at the finance, not yet, but I think it will come. And it’s also a way to link it with the future strategy. So we really feel that we are now only at the beginning of the story when it comes to PSG and gaming. We entered through esports and I think that was great because that gives us also credibility now to speak about all the other verticals.”

PSG want fans of the club, not just their football teams

“If you can convert an esports fan into a football fan, a PSG fan, it’s cool. But I think what we want is to have a PSG fan. And if you are a fan of the club because you are a fan of our League of Legends team, that’s enough for me. I’m happy to have you in my base. And our whole job is to offer them what they want as an esports fan. That’s why we have a lot of work internally at the moment about the database, where the fans are, who they are, and what they are expecting from us. If you are a young League of Legends fan based in Hong Kong and you love PSG thanks to esports, and you are just expecting us to be able to sell you an esports jersey in Hong Kong, which is not the case now, we will try to develop this to be able to make you happy.”

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