The Gucci Gaming Academy launched in May 2022 – the first grassroots esports initiative by a luxury brand designed to empower young esports athletes.
In 2015 FACEIT, a global competitive-gaming platform, created the FACEIT Pro League (FPL), a private community of professional players. This solved most common “path to pro” issues. However, despite dozens of FPL players reaching pro-level, more support was needed.
FACEIT turned to Gucci, a brand with a history of creating educational, community-driven initiatives, with strong ties to gaming. Gucci wanted to establish themselves as a brand in the space that cares and supports the community.
The companies aligned on creating the opportunity to support players to realise their talent.
The Gucci Gaming Academy offers in-game training and holistic support providing mental health education, wellbeing resources compiled by the WHO, contract seminars, mentoring, career-coaching sessions, and top-of-the-line equipment from Logitech G and Dell Alienware.
In artistic collaboration with Gucci, an awareness campaign featured a video centrepiece called The Bellhop. It connected the history and flair of Gucci, and engaged the esports community, driving awareness of the Academy’s core values.
It was received positively, garnering global esports and media coverage, and was praised for its stylised content which showed the investment Gucci and FACEIT had made into grassroots esports.
The partnership provides an example to the esports community, launches talent into the pro-leagues, and helps to spearhead a cultural shift in moving esports towards parity with its physical sports-industry sibling.
