The reveal copy was scripted: "@SirActionSlacks is joining CHEXX as our host at ESL Birmingham." A Dota 2 broadcast voice the audience already trusts, used the way an operator uses talent — pre-briefed, in-frame on activations, repurposed across post-event cuts.
Case study 02
Media Strategy Partner · Belgrade · 2025 – 2026
Sponsor-tier activation for CHEXX at ESL One Birmingham 2026.
Strategic media partnership for a launch-phase iGaming brand. ESL One Birmingham 2026
(Dota 2) was the flagship window: on-site sponsor presence, SirActionSlacks on camera
as host, the CHEXX-CHICKS talent unit, a Twitch !command freebet mechanic
wired into ESL's official broadcast chat, and a 10-shorts post-event production burst.
- ESL OneBirmingham 2026, Dota 2
- Slackson camera as host
- 125%ESL Start promo
- 10 shortspost-event burst
ESL One Birmingham 2026 · flagship window
A Tier-1 Dota 2 event turned into an owned-channel asset bank.
Sponsor-tier on-site presence with named on-camera host
CHEXX was a sponsor-tier brand at ESL One Birmingham 2026 with on-site presence,
the CHEXX-CHICKS talent unit, broadcast-side activations, and a Twitch
!command freebet mechanic running inside ESL's official broadcast chat.
The reveal — "@SirActionSlacks is joining CHEXX as our host at ESL Birmingham" —
was scripted, not improvised. The point of the partnership was to turn a Tier-1
broadcast into stills, clips, and post-event shorts the brand could keep publishing.
On-camera host
SirActionSlacks
Talent unit
CHEXX-CHICKS
Promo campaign
125% ESL Start
Twitch freebet mechanic
!commandin ESL's broadcast chat
ESL One Birmingham 2026 · activation map
What the sponsor-tier activation actually shipped.
On-site presence is one line item. The activation read out as a stack: a named host, a branded talent unit, a dated promo, a contest with quantified prize inventory, a Twitch chat mechanic inside ESL's official broadcast, and a locked post-event production pipeline. Every layer wired back to owned channels.
An on-site talent unit with its own brand line. Same brief as the rest of the floor team — show up where the cameras already are, generate footage the social team can publish that night, not next week.
A concrete promo code tied to the Birmingham window, not an evergreen offer. The campaign name shipped on owned channels and through the broadcast-chat mechanic — a specific number against a specific event.
Quantified prize inventory: "2 tickets to the Dota 2 event… VIP Tournament Ticket (all 3 days)" plus CHEXX merch. The contest was the reason audiences had to come back to owned channels during the broadcast window.
!command freebet in ESL's official chat
The freebet mechanic ran as a chat command inside ESL's official broadcast chat — a distribution surface a sponsor only gets at Tier-1 scale. The mechanic was spec'd as a command, not a banner.
"ТЗ на монтаж (10 шортсов)" — a locked brief for ten short-form cuts produced after the tournament. The activation was not designed to die on Sunday night. The reason there is content for weeks is that the brief existed before the cameras rolled.
Partnership scope
What the partnership covered.
An iGaming brand in a crowded category needs more than activations on stage — it needs a media voice that survives ESL-scale pressure and shows up daily on owned channels.
Brought the operator-side experience of running a $150K/mo media P&L to a launch-phase iGaming brand: positioning, channel priority, and the publishing rhythm that pays back. Engagement formalised on the partner side via a commercial proposal (КП) deck — enterprise-grade scope, not a handshake.
A documented content manifesto built around the XX/EXX pattern — NEXXT, EXXCITEMENT, cheXX.bet — so every channel reads as one brand instead of one writer. Voice is a system the team can run, not a vibe.
A 65-slide design brief produced for CHEXX SMM. Quantifies the design-system scope: stories, post templates, story mechanics, signage. The reason the activation felt like one brand on screen is that the system existed before the event week.
Versioned playbooks: an Instagram playbook, an Action Plan v2 (Updated), and supporting briefs. Senior operators run their lanes off the documents instead of pinging me — the engagement is built to scale, not to depend on me.
ESL activation wall
Broadcast attention, distributed where it earns repeat reads.
ESL CS2 and Dota 2 broadcasts run at scale. The activation flow turned that scale into stills, clips, and stories that the channel kept publishing for weeks — not just on the day of the broadcast.
How the channels were measured
Discipline first, virality second.
ESL-window posting schedules respected match timing and news cycles instead of chasing cold trends. Each post tied to a real moment — a stage swing, an interview clip, a sponsor activation — not a top-of-funnel meme.
Brand voice rules kept tone consistent across X, IG, and recap content. No "marketing speak" — copy read like an esports operator, because that is what the audience reads in their feed every day.
Where appropriate, distribution leaned on CS2NEWS Media Group's existing audience — ~1.4M followers across CS2 and Dota 2 — so the brand's launch content reached people who actually read esports news, not just lookalike ad audiences.
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