• G2 will field a football team in the newly announced Kings League Germany, marking the organisation’s first entry into traditional sports, a major milestone for the club. The team is set to compete in the Kings World Cup Qualifiers in Germany ahead of the Kings World Cup in June.
• 2025 is G2’s 10 year anniversary and as the organisation looks ahead to the future, a key focus area is blurring the lines between esports and traditional sports in a way that makes sense for its young community.
• Kings League and G2 have a shared vision of entertainment, innovation, and fan engagement, blending traditional sports, esports, and entertainment in a way that appeals to multigenerational audiences.
• G2 is the first esports team to join Kings League in Europe.
• The strategic move will harness digital innovation, shaping a future where sports and esports coexist and thrive together.
• The move is an expansion of G2’s competitive DNA, rather than a shift away from esports.

G2, one of the world’s leading esports and entertainment brands, has announced it will be fielding a football team (G2 FC) in the new German division of Kings League, a 7-a-side global football league, founded in 2022 by Gerard Piqué, former professional player for FC Barcelona and the Spanish national team, in collaboration with other football personalities and streamers.

Kings League features teams from around the world, with domestic leagues in Spain, Americas, Brazil, Italy, France, and the newly announced German league. On April 12, Kings League Germany will launch with a qualification series for the Kings World Cup, where 8 teams will compete for one of 2 slots to represent Germany in the upcoming World Cup in France. On March 25th, Kings League Germany was announced, with Bastian Schweinsteiger as President, unveiling 6 teams in the league, with a surprise 7th and 8th team. G2 can now confirm today, it’s one of the surprise teams to join the league.

G2 FC is based in Berlin, with 2 Berliner footballers appointed as Team Manager and Coach. Ron Stublla, with a background in Sports Management and played in the Youth Bundesliga, joins as Team Manager alongside new Coach, Malik Hadziavdic, who was a member of the German National Futsal team and played for FC Liria Berlin in the Futsal Bundesliga. The team recently completed tryouts with footballers at the Adidas SPORTS BASE BERLIN, and a full roster reveal is coming soon.

Kings League leverages streaming to maximize its reach, allowing each club to broadcast games directly to their fans through dedicated co-streams. G2 has partnered with German influencers Reeze and Rumathra as their content creator duo, and the pair will co-stream all G2 FC games on Twitch.

G2 is one of the most successful esports organisations in the world, with 40 million fans globally and over 100 first-place finishes across all teams. G2 is known for its consistent competitive success, with the most-awarded League of Legends team in Europe, the best VALORANT team in America, one of the best Counter Strike teams, and the most successful women’s esports teams in the world. G2 is also the most entertaining brand in esports, its raw, unfiltered approach to content and community with a key focus on narrative building and storytelling has enabled the organisation to rise above its competitors, setting the bar high for the industry.

2025 is G2’s 10 year anniversary, and over the past decade, it has grown into a defiant powerhouse in esports, with successful teams across the globe and long-standing partnerships with mainstream global brands including Mastercard, Red Bull, Ralph Lauren, Herman Miller, Spotify, and Oakley. As G2 looks ahead to the future with plans to continue and diversify its expansion, entry into traditional sports is a key exciting pillar for the organisation. Kings League is a completely new way to experience football, combining sport, entertainment and digital innovation, and G2 is ready to take on this challenge to bring something fresh and fun to the next generation of sports fans.

Alban Dechelotte, CEO of G2 comments: “When G2 was created 10 years ago, the dream was to build the ‘Real Madrid of esports’. We wanted to be known as a disruptive brand that’s not only competitively successful, but also has a great personality that knows how to entertain and captivate our fans through storytelling and community building. Now, 10 years later, we are the ‘Real Madrid of esports’, so it’s time for us to go one step further and become the ‘G2 of sports’. Esports has a unique way of connecting with and engaging our passionate fanbase and now it’s our opportunity to show traditional sports how we do things, the G2 way.”

G2 is the first esports organisation to enter Kings League in Europe, and showcases G2’s commitment to shaping its future by blurring the lines between esports and traditional sports, and bringing expert knowledge of new-age digital communities to the next generation of sports fans.

Strengthens its commitment to corporate information security

Vibra Group, a regional holding company dedicated to developing software and content for the online gaming industry, has been awarded the ISO/IEC 27001:2022 certification by TÜV Rheinland, a globally recognized certification body. This achievement reinforces Vibra Group’s commitment to the highest standards of information security.

The certification covers key processes including the design and development of online casino games, their distribution through a proprietary platform, and integration with third-party platforms. It also includes the provision of online casino platforms and technological solutions that ensure secure, efficient, and compliant operations in regulated markets.

This milestone supports Vibra Group’s ongoing goal of continuously improving its processes, practices, and standards. It reflects the Group’s constant effort—through its multiple verticals—to generate synergies and strengthen capabilities to offer a comprehensive ecosystem of products and services tailored to the Latin American market.

“ISO 27001 certification marks an important step in our journey to evolve and enhance the way we work. It is part of Vibra Group’s commitment to delivering secure and reliable solutions, and to continuing our responsible growth in regulated markets,” said Ramiro Atucha, CEO of Vibra Group.

With third-party cookies on their way out and user-level tracking becoming less reliable by the month, iGaming marketers are being forced to rethink how they build performance. 

The shift has exposed deep cracks in traditional acquisition strategies. Attribution models are fading. CACs are climbing. And data-driven targeting no longer works the way it used to. As a result, one trend is taking center stage: performance works better when awareness comes first.

Across the iGaming industry, growth teams are rediscovering that PR, media buying, and brand-building aren’t vanity plays. They’re clean, compliant, and increasingly essential levers that drive real conversion – especially when user-level data is off the table.

At RockApp, we’ve seen this shift play out across multiple markets and verticals.

Performance Doesn’t Happen in a Vacuum

The traditional approach to iGaming performance marketing is ruthlessly optimized: creatives A/B tested down to pixel placement, traffic sources ranked by ROI, and every conversion event tracked. But in today’s data-fragmented ecosystem, even the best-optimized campaign can stall if users don’t recognize or trust the brand behind the offer.

That’s where earned media – and strategic media buying – start pulling their weight in new ways.

According to Think with Google, users exposed to both brand-building ads and performance campaigns are 2x more likely to convert than those who see only one or the other. In our experience, the effect is even more pronounced in privacy-restricted environments, where brand trust becomes a conversion lever, not just a UX concern.

The Awareness-Conversion Loop

In multiple campaigns RockApp has supported for iGaming brands entering new markets, we’ve observed a consistent pattern: strategic media exposure – whether through earned coverage, sponsored content, or thought leadership – primes audiences and lifts downstream performance.

To validate this trend, we recently conducted an internal study comparing two iGaming operators – Brand A and Brand B – both entering the same market with near-identical user flows: similar registration forms, interface logic, site structure, and acquisition funnels.

Brand A had active media presence in the region: ongoing PR coverage in vertical media, sports sponsorship deals with local clubs, and participation in relevant offline events. Brand B, although an established name in other regions, had no media activity or brand presence in the local market at the time of launch.

The performance delta was striking.

• Brand A achieved a registration-to-deposit (reg2dep) conversion rate of 48%
• Brand B reached just 26% – almost half

The only significant difference: Brand A was visible, trusted, and familiar to the audience – Brand B wasn’t.

“We consistently see that performance campaigns supported by active PR in the target region outperform standalone campaigns by at least 30%,” says Khanikian Dmitriy, CMO at RockApp. “This becomes especially evident in mid-funnel metrics like reg2dep, where user hesitation can make or break profitability. When users recognize the brand – because they’ve seen it in the media or associated with local sports – they convert faster and with more confidence.”

Sports sponsorships in particular proved to be a powerful lever. By aligning with culturally relevant teams and events, Brand A tapped into existing emotional loyalty, which translated into commercial action. These touchpoints created a steady flow of earned impressions that enhanced performance media, rather than competing with it.

Additionally, PR-led visibility drove a measurable increase in organic traffic. Branded search queries and direct visits rose during campaign peaks, indicating that users were not only clicking on paid ads – but also actively seeking out the brand. This broadens top-of-funnel reach and reduces dependency on high-cost user acquisition channels.

The takeaway: media exposure isn’t just about awareness – it’s an input into conversion.

From Vanity to Utility: Rethinking Media Buys in a Cookieless World

A common misconception is that media buying is just about impressions. In truth, when layered with performance goals, it becomes a strategic asset, especially in a world where deterministic tracking is fading.

Smart buys in content networks, programmatic placements in relevant environments, and even native sponsorships act as pre-conversion touchpoints. They reach users early, before they enter the performance funnel, and shape perception at moments attribution platforms can’t see.

A 2023 study by Pathmatics showed that iGaming brands investing consistently in upper-funnel media saw a 1.5x higher ROAS on performance campaigns compared to those that didn’t.

In a privacy-first market, the logic is simple: you may not be able to track every step, but you can influence every outcome.

What This Means for iGaming Marketers

As user-level tracking degrades and campaign measurement becomes less reliable, growth teams need to think beyond the click. PR and media exposure are no longer peripheral – they’re central to performance strategy.

At RockApp, we’ve adjusted our UA approach to integrate upstream planning with media and PR teams. The results: lower CAC, higher retention, and more resilient campaign performance across regulated and privacy-conscious markets.

So what can iGaming marketers do right now?

• Map your funnel touchpoints beyond attribution. Awareness matters even when you can’t track it.
• Align media buying and PR efforts with performance goals – not after the fact, but during planning.
• Invest in brand signals like sports sponsorships, thought leadership, and earned media. They work when pixels can’t.

In a privacy-first world, performance doesn’t start with a click – it starts with trust.

And trust is built upstream.