BLAST partners with Movember for mental health initiative

Esports production company and tournament organiser BLAST has partnered with men’s health charity Movember to support the mental health of esports players and fans.

The deal makes Movember the official mental health partner of BLAST Premier, and the two brands have announced activations and awareness campaigns focused on men’s mental health.

The partnership will be showcased at the BLAST Premier World Final 2024, the season-ending event in the BLAST Premier calendar, set to take place between October 30th and November 2nd in Singapore. During the event, BLAST and Movember will connect with teams, players and fans to discuss men’s mental health and encourage them to take action and support themselves and each other.

In addition, BLAST and Movember will work together to create a set of mental health guidelines that will be based around the real-world experiences of esports players. This is, according to the two partners, designed to ‘level up the impact esports has on people’s mental health with the aim of onboarding new organisations in the future.’

Director of Global Innovations at Movember Dan Cooper said: “This partnership between Movember and BLAST Premier is a significant step in highlighting the health challenges facing those in the esports community. We plan to do that in part by collaboratively building guidelines that will act as a set of foundational principles to protect esports players and support the creation of psychologically safe spaces.”

The two brands already worked together during the BLAST Premier Fall Final, where Movember held workshops with players and talent to better understand the main sources of issues for them. In addition, Movember opened a barber shop on-site that offered haircuts along with a chat about mental health between visitors and staff.