{"id":68672,"date":"2024-10-23T10:59:17","date_gmt":"2024-10-23T10:59:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ginx.tv\/an-unexpected-source-is-fueling-the-careers-of-budding-women-gamers-milk"},"modified":"2024-10-23T12:15:14","modified_gmt":"2024-10-23T12:15:14","slug":"an-unexpected-source-is-fueling-the-careers-of-budding-women-gamers-milk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ginx.tv\/en\/fortnite\/an-unexpected-source-is-fueling-the-careers-of-budding-women-gamers-milk","title":{"rendered":"An Unexpected Source is Fueling the Careers of Budding Women Gamers \u2014 Milk"},"content":{"rendered":"

Back in early October, the largest all-women’s Fortnite LAN<\/a> took place at Los Angeles ComicCon, where 33 teams of Trios came together to battle it out for the biggest North American prize pool in women’s esports history. It was a lot of firsts for the community, the participating players, but also the organizers behind the event — GonnaNeedMilk. <\/p>\n

As a dairy milk awareness brand, GonnaNeedMilk and MilkPEP seems an unlikely source for esports support, but the brand is no stranger to backing performance-led sports and activities. MilkPEP’s CEO Yin Woon Rani saw esports as a logical space for Milk to exist: <\/p>\n

“I have an 18-year-old son, and gaming and music are his whole life. We’re trying very hard to position Milk as the kind of product that helps sponsor people’s passions, and sponsors their fandom, and feels the things they want to do. And so when you think about youth, you cannot think about gaming,” Yin said.<\/p>\n

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The Milk Cup ran the largest ever all-women’s Fortnite LAN. (Picture: GonnaNeedMilk)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

“MilkPEP has been in esports in one fashion or another for like five or six years. And it was just logical, like our perspective is that esports is sports. And Milk has always supported sports. We call ourselves the OG sports drink. We wanted to shine the light, become the performance drink for gamers.”<\/p>\n

It seems strange, at first, to consider milk as a sports drink. We’ve been conditioned to associate sports and the gaming space with certain energy drink brands, such as Monster Energy, Red Bull, Lucozade, and more. But there’s a large portion of the community that doesn’t consume typical energy drinks, for various reasons, and as such there’s an avenue for something different. <\/p>\n

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Yin Woon Rani, CEO of MilkPEP. (Picture: MilkPEP)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

“It really comes from our focus on that youth audience, which is such a big consumer of milk,” Yin continued. “We want to be really relevant and have them understand that Milk has lots of great health benefits, both from physical benefits of strength and protein, and hydration. But we’re also excited to spotlight for gamers that Milk contains the key nutrients that you need to focus. And also because of the ratio of protein to sugar, it’s a great source of sustained energy without the caffeine crash. So we think this focus area is a particularly important benefit for gamers, particularly those who are playing long, or competitive games.”<\/p>\n

So where did MilkPEP and GonnaNeedMilk fit into the Fortnite space and, more specifically, Fortnite in relation to women’s esports? Well, the answer is one grounded in the community, and the potential to build something meaningful. <\/p>\n