How Visa's M7 play signals a broader rethink of eSports as a serious brand channel

When the M7 World Championship Grand Finals arrived in Jakarta, the scale and intensity were unmistakable. The arena was packed, while a global audience followed the matches online. Fans came not just to watch elite players compete, but to meet creators, engage with brand activations, purchase merchandise and take part in an ecosystem where eSports now converges with entertainment, commerce and community.

The scene made one thing clear: eSports has moved beyond experimentation to become a serious brand channel. Across Asia Pacific, gaming is now a mass-market behaviour rather than a niche subculture. The region is home to around 1.5 billion gamers, accounting for more than half of the world’s total, while the global gaming market is projected to exceed US$500 billion by 2030. Mobile Legends: Bang Bang (MLBB) alone counts over 110 million monthly active users, with Indonesia as its largest market worldwide.

That scale, combined with depth of engagement, is why brands such as Visa are now treating eSports as a long-term strategic platform rather than a one-off sponsorship play. “Gaming is not a niche in Asia Pacific,” said Danielle Jin (pictured, left), SVP and CMO of Visa for Asia Pacific, reflecting on attending the M7 finals in Jakarta. “It is moving very deeply into culture and in turn, is driving commerce across the region.”

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Why eSports works differently from traditional sports

Unlike traditional sports, eSports collapses the line between player and spectator. In MLBB’s case, millions who watch tournaments also play the game daily. According to Martinus H. Manurung (pictured, right), head of Indonesia business development at MOONTON Games, this creates a fundamentally different emotional and commercial dynamic.

“In online gaming, the people that play and the people that watch are more or less the same,” he told MARKETING-INTERACTIVE. “The emotion it captures is very different.”

This overlap changes how brands are experienced. Fans are not just consuming content passively; they are learning strategies, following professional players, copying in-game behaviours and then returning to play themselves. The result is a feedback loop that traditional media struggles to replicate.

It also explains why eSports delivers unusually high loyalty. Indonesia’s MPL league has recorded more than 100 million hours watched in each of its past five seasons, while the M7 finals peaked at 5.68 million concurrent viewers, making it the most-watched mobile eSports event in history. Exposure is not fleeting; it is repeated, habitual and socially reinforced.

Mobile-first, community-led and culturally embedded

Asia’s eSports advantage lies not just in size, but in structure. While the US remains a high-value gaming market with meaningful scale across console, PC and mobile, Southeast Asia is overwhelmingly mobile-first. That distinction shapes how audiences play, watch and spend.

“People shop differently and also play differently,” Jin explained. “They are usually not going to a physical store to buy a video game or merchandise. They are doing it online on a global shelf.”

Mobile gaming also aligns naturally with how younger consumers transact, making eSports an effective bridge between entertainment and digital commerce. For payment brands such as Visa, that connection is strategic rather than symbolic.

At M7, Visa’s presence went beyond logo placement. The brand built fan zones, introduced gamified financial literacy experiences and embedded its payment capabilities into the tournament ecosystem, reinforcing familiarity through use rather than messaging.

What makes eSports especially potent in markets such as Indonesia is its social fabric. Concepts such as mabar (main bareng, or playing together) reflect how gaming is woven into everyday social life. MLBB’s long-term success, Manurung noted, has come from accessibility, deep localisation and continuous feedback from its community.

“Everyone can play, everyone has a story,” he said. “And Indonesians are very social.”

What brands are really buying

For brands entering eSports, raw audience numbers are often the headline attraction. But insiders argue that reach alone is not the real value. The true asset lies in culture, co-creation and longevity.

MLBB’s ecosystem extends well beyond tournaments into streaming, creator economies, grassroots competitions and offline festivals. Fans follow players, copy their preferences and notice when brands disappear.

“When a brand leaves, the community notices,” Manurung said. “There is something missing.”

This dynamic explains why eSports partnerships tend to reward long-term commitment. MOONTON has seen brands start with domestic leagues, scale to world championships and then expand across regions, using Indonesia as a testing ground before replicating success elsewhere with local adaptation.

For non-endemic brands, creativity matters more than category fit. From shampoos to jewellery to coffee, successful campaigns have translated gaming language into brand storytelling through gamification, rewards and culturally fluent humour. Sales may be the end goal, but in eSports they often arrive as a by-product of sustained relevance.

Building brand equity, not just impressions

For Visa, the ambition is explicitly long-term. Jin emphasised that single events deliver visibility but not sustained connections.

“What we want is to work with partners who understand gaming so that in the long run, Visa shows up authentically in gamers’ experiences and bring value to the entire community in Asia Pacific,” she said.

That philosophy mirrors how Visa approaches traditional properties such as the Olympics or FIFA, supporting not just elite competition but the broader ecosystem of fans, creators and aspiring players. In eSports, the opportunity is amplified by digital intimacy and daily touchpoints.

The same logic underpins Red Bull’s first-ever partnership with the M Series, where live performances, music programming and festival-style activations turned the tournament into a lifestyle event. The brand’s role was not to interrupt the experience, but to expand it.

At M7, global players such as Visa, Red Bull, realme, NBA and 1Play shared the spotlight with regional brands including Tokopedia, GoPay, Gojek, Indomaret, Point Coffee and Cinema XXI, collectively turning the event into a fully immersive, cross-sectoral brand experience.

Gaming without borders

As traditional media fragments and younger audiences retreat from linear channels, eSports offers something increasingly rare: mass reach with cultural depth. MLBB’s roadmap to expand into Europe, the Middle East and the Americas from 2026 signals that this model is becoming globally scalable, not just regionally dominant.

With MLBB going global, Visa is moving alongside the fandom, reinforcing its tagline, ‘Everywhere you want to be.’ Jin called the ability to scale from local grassroots activations to regional and global tournaments – including a world championship – a key advantage, on top of which the platform has “excellent partners” to work with.

“The level of scale, combined with community engagement and fandom, really makes gaming one of the most powerful ways for us to reach the next generation, especially Gen Zs and Millennials who will drive the future of commerce and payments,” she said, adding that it aligns with Visa’s vision of empowering passions across the full spectrum of digital lifestyles. 

The way we wanted to approach gaming is by understanding that it’s not just a hobby – it’s a cultural phenomenon.

Expanding into new territories presents both opportunity and nuance: brands must navigate distinct gaming cultures and speak the language of fandom, Manurung noted. Success in Indonesia offers a proven model, he said, but lasting impact requires ongoing engagement and a long-term commitment to the communities that make eSports more than just a game.

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