An Unexpected Source is Fueling the Careers of Budding Women Gamers — Milk

Back in early October, the largest all-women’s Fortnite LAN 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. 

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: 

“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.

“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.”

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. 

“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.”

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. 

• Read More: The Milk Cup: A Shining Beacon for All-Women LANs

“We started this community because we have been very focused on hearing the voice of the community. Many sponsors show up in spaces, be it in sports or esports, and want to drive their own agenda. The [GonnaNeedMilk] team has done an incredible job of listening to Discord, players, and building that community. In fact we built custom maps last year called the Zany Ziplines Maps, because that was the map that was the most requested and didn't exist,” Yin explained.

“In some ways I think we see ourselves as visitors to this space — I think people don't expect to find milk in this space, you're much more likely to find a carbonated soft drink or energy drink like Red Bull and Monster — and so because we were coming to the space for the first time, we wanted to respect the rules, hear the voices and be a welcome visitor. Not someone who just showed up to sell the thing they're trying to sell.”

MilkPEP had a lot of valuable help when it came to creating The Milk Cup, namely from industry veterans such as Heather “sapphiRe” Garozzo and the Raidiant production team, and community leaders like ThePeachCobbler. Combined, the brand was able to create an event that addressed the needs of not only its players, but its wider audience. 

“We have a lot of expertise from the staff between the internal team and the agency, who are gamers themselves,” Yin said. “We really want to have milk sponsor the passions of our audience, and we were very sensitive to not do sponsorships that result in us showing up and leaving. We're committed to The Milk Cup, we'll do this for multiple years. We're committed to the female marathon, we'll do that for multiple years. We talk a lot about actions, not ads. And we want those actions to be guided by the community.

We've been really lucky with both the community and experts like Raidiant and WOTE (Women of the eRena) and ThePeachCobbler, who are really giving us good guidance of what a, frankly, a world-class tournament for women should look like and feel like.”

• Read more: ThePeachCobbler — “The Milk Cup Isn’t Just a Tournament, It’s Where Change Starts”

The Milk Cup finals at LA ComicCon was a huge success, having offered women players a dedicated space to compete as their authentic selves. No matter their placing, every competitor walked away with some prize money, and a solid LAN to their names. For the champions Team Moxie, a Trio consisting of Mexican players Moxie, Regsita, and Dieyuhs, it was a dream come true. The team secured three of the six Victory Royales, and walked away with $75,000, and a signing to XSET following their performance in the first qualifiers.

“I just feel like a proud mama,” Yin said. “Proud for these girls, and really proud of my team that has worked so hard and put really their heart and soul into this. This is truly a labor of love, and it took a village. I mean, if you saw how many people were involved in front of and behind the scenes, when I looked at the list of people coming, I was like, ‘Okay, this is for real.’ But I feel very proud and very touched, and I do hope that it will spark others to support this community.”

There's still more to come from The Milk Cup this year, with The Winter Split beginning on November 13, 2024. This time, Duos will be duking it out online in Zero Build for a piece of the $50,000.

To catch the action as it happens, The Winter Split will be broadcast live on both the Women of the eRena's Twitch channel and GonnaNeedMilk’s channels.