RESOLVING THE LEDGER
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See the full story · 1 sourcesPlayer walk onto the stage to debut the France National Team jersey for the Esports Nations Cup on Sunday. The Esports Foundation and adidas partnered to design more than 100 nation's jerseys.
One of the first off-the-field pieces of debate surrounds jersey design. Fans will argue about which team has the best looks and designs for domestic competitions. But once it becomes a global event, the stakes are higher as fans try to analyze every detail on a jersey to extrude some type of symbolic meaning.
The Esports Foundation knew this and wanted to avoid making a poor first impression. So they opted to partner with a leading athletic brand to design and produce jerseys for their first-ever Esports Nations Cup, which is set to take place in November in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
The Esports Foundation and adidas joined forces to make the athletic clothing company the exclusive apparel outfitter of the Esports Nations Cup. They debuted the France National Team jersey on Sunday, and the rollout of national team jerseys will continue throughout the year.
But for the Esports Foundation, it was vital for the team to create jerseys that have a larger appeal.
“Obviously, when you have a big national team-based competition, like the Esports Nations Cup, the jersey plays a very important role because it’s visually the first thing you see that represents the nation,” Esports Foundation chief commercial officer Mohammad Al Nimer said.
The Natural Fit
The international competition space isn’t new to adidas. They’ve made apparel for just about every global event, and senior vice president of brand development Phillip Waller figured that esports also fits that same mold.
“For decades, adidas has been present at major sports competitions where the world comes together,” he said. “There is an incredible cultural energy in esports and gaming. We acknowledge it, we feel it – and we want to be part of this incredible milestone.”
Now, the apparel market is filled with brands that could have taken on this project, and Al Nimer said the organization remains in constant contact with them regarding partnership deals, adding that when they met with adidas, it was as a “natural fit.”
“We felt that their vision was very close to ours in terms of what this jersey needed to represent and how it needed to look like,” Al Nimer said.
Adidas developed football (soccer) national kit designs for Spain, Japan, Belgium, and Mexico. Waller credits this experience as one of the biggest reasons why they’re able to create unique looks for more than 100 nations.
Esports jerseys, however, tend to resemble soccer kits from material, along with look and feel, making it an easy conversion in some respects.
“The challenge was creating a jersey that feels authentic to esports and deliver the credibility and performance expected of a national team kit,” he said. “We developed a distinct identity that captures the energy of esports while remaining unmistakably adidas.”
The design and creation process continues with most Tier 1 nations (nations with the most title entries) receiving their designs. The France National Team jersey was revealed Sunday, and more nations will follow in the coming months before the event.
“It was a lot of back and forth,” Al Nimer said. “[It was] a lot of work with the designers but also testing those jerseys with people who come from those different countries to make sure that we are culturally relevant and locally relevant for each one of those countries.”
There was another challenge, though: the hurried timeline that came with planning the Esports Nations Cup.
A Sprint, Not a Marathon
While international esports events between countries have existed and been hosted by other organizations, few – if any – have reached the scale that the Esports Foundation has attempted. The event will feature 16 titles with more than 100 countries attempting to qualify for the event.
The Esports Foundation aims to create a similar environment to an Olympic Games with a highly condensed timeline – a little more than two years after the Olympics agreed to partner with the Saudi Arabian National Olympic Committee to host an IOC-regulated esports Olympics. The deal fell through, however, due to a variety of factors. The Esports Advocate noted leadership changes and philosophical differences.
In the wake of the collapsed agreement, the Esports Foundation, which had just finished hosting the Esports World Cup in 2025, announced the Esports Nations Cup on Aug. 23, 2025. The event will take place every two years, with the first iteration planned for November 2026.
The announcement came with logistical challenges from finding national team partners, team selection, and titles. One of the lesser but still valuable things on the list: jerseys and athletic gear.
Esports Foundation chief operating officer and deputy CEO Mike McCabe, who previously worked with Nike, recalled the process of developing specialized kits for international teams for World Cups and the challenges facing the team when asked about it in March.
“The design cycle is four years plus for those national team kits,” McCabe said. “We didn’t have that long.”
Waller said the team has been working on the project for close to a year.
“It was a significant challenge for our team, but this is an incredibly exciting opportunity for us as a brand,” he said. “These jerseys will become a symbol of incredible moments that both athletes and fans will remember for life.”
The creation of official national apparel gives fans a tangible item to buy that isn’t tied solely to gaming, which can prove important to the larger picture.
Selling the Unsellable
Most esports merchandise is purely for the purpose of playing. Gaming mice, chairs, and keyboards with specific switches are the heart and soul of esports, but for fans, it’s the equivalent of buying a specific brand of hockey stick, baseball bat, or gloves.
“When I was a kid, oh, so-and-so was wearing this...
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