Esports is an industry is ever growing. And it seems like it’s doing so at a pace that more and more traditional sports organisations are looking to get in on the action. Among them is the Selangor Football Club, which already has its own esports team competing in the FIFA titles. But today, the football club has announced its team for Mobile Legends: Bang Bang called the Yoodo Red Giants esports team.
For additional context behind the name, Red Giants is the nickname of Selangor FC, with Yoodo being one of the sponsors of the team. The club also claims that is the first football team in Malaysia to have its own team competing in the Mobile Legends Professional League (MPL). Incidentally, the team will also be taking part in the upcoming MPL Malaysia Season 11.
While the team will be competing under the Selangor FC banner moving forward, it is not a newly assembled one. The team, which comprises of members ESHA OHANA, KAIZER, SYF, GOJES, ZAKQT, and SEKYS, as well as team manager RUSH, have quite the list of accolades in their time competing last year. In addition to already having qualified for the aforementioned MPL Malaysia Season 11, they’ve also been crowned champions for a few tourneys, including ESportsMY Championship, Malaysia Semi Pro League, National Youth Sports Day, GMX Cup and the Iskandar Puteri Tournament, to name a few.
As mentioned earlier, traditional sports organisations taking a dip into esports is not exactly a new trend. Locally, there have been football clubs of other states with their own esports teams. Among them include the likes of JDT and Kelantan’s TRW.
And it’s not just local football clubs either. For example, Spanish club FC Barcelona also has its own esports team, participating notably in League of Legends and eFootball, formerly known as PES. And as these clubs have shown, they’re not restricted to only football-adjacent games.
