Here's why the University of Washington football team partnered with...World of Warcraft

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Last week, the University of Washington football program did something nobody else has done this college football season. The program announced a massive partnership with a major video game developer, creating in-game activations, significant NIL deals for athletes, digital takeovers, mascots, and much more.

Before you guess, no, the partnership wasn’t with EA Sports and College Football 25. It wasn’t with Fortnite, or Minecraft, or Roblox, or any AAA shooter.

It was with World of Warcraft.

For those unaware, World of Warcraft is a massively popular multiplayer online role-playing game, full of wizards and magic and loot-gathering…not the sort of game that you might automatically think about when you think of college football. It’s also not a new game….WoW originally came out in 2004, although it’s been updated multiple times since then.

I’m not surprised a major game franchise decided to partner with a major college football program. But I have to admit, this particular game was probably not what I would have guessed.

So I called up Washington to learn more about the campaign. And my first question….was why?

And it turns out, there’s more of a crossover appeal than I would have guessed

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