Guild Esports PLC announced that it has signed a technical partnership agreement with Fanatec. The partnership marks Guild's entry into sim racing, a fast-growing sector of the esports industry. Fanatec will supply Guild with a total of eight sim racing rigs, related hardware and regular technology upgrades under a value-in-kind deal.

The rigs will form the centrepiece for a new Guild Sim Racing Facility being established at the Sky Guild Gaming Centre, located at the Company's London headquarters, to serve as a new revenue stream for Guild. In exchange, Guild will provide Fanatec with prominent branding around the simulator facility in the Sky Guild Gaming Centre, as well as logo placements on social media. The Guild Simulator Facility will additionally serve as a showroom for Fanatec, providing Guild with affiliate revenue from any on-site or digital sales.

The Facility will provide and tailored simulator gameplay and experiential packages for corporates, the wider public, as well as rentable training facilities for professional teams. The new offering will be advertised across Guild-owned channels, partner networks, and the existing B2B communications channels and outlets used for Guild HQ services. The Company expects the sim racing facility will begin to generate revenue from the third quarter of the 2023 calendar year. The move into digital motorsports also opens up a range of new sponsorship categories for Guild's esports division with conversations already underway in this sector.

As sim racing games seek to accurately represent motorsports in gaming, incorporating real-world variables such as tyre wear, suspension settings and fuel usage, the realistic qualities of racing simulation have seen it become a pathway to traditional motorsports: former Formula One esports racer Cem Bolukbasi competed in the 2022 FIA Formula 2 Championship, the feeder series to Formula One, following a successful esports career. This bridge with traditional motorsport makes the use cases of sophisticated rigs varied and of interest to a diverse customer base beyond sim racing esports.