With European LoL and CS:GO rosters, a Southeast Asian Dota 2 roster and an American Overwatch roster, Fnatic is arguably one of the most international esports team in the world. And the organization is not looking to stop there as an expansion into China may soon be on the horizon.

Fnatic recently announced a partnership with Chinese esports agency B.O.O.T that will see the company help Fnatic build their brand in China by managing their social media, video content and business development in the country.

According to Fnatic chief gaming officer, Patrik "cArn" Sattermon, the importance of the Chinese market can't be underestimated. He says that while Fnatic has been successful entering new markets, such as Southeast Asia, China presents distinct challenges that they need local expertise to overcome, such as language and culture.

[It] probably has one of the biggest or the biggest player-base if you break it down by country and the world. I do believe today [esports] is also acknowledged by the government as a sport. It's a lot of movement in the market, China is gaining a lot in terms how they're becoming more international, what kind of role they're playing in everything from politics to economy to sports. We do think similar to South-East Asia that we have kind of a latent, idling fan base over in China and we are furthermore interested to further expand our brands. So we have enabled South-East Asia. We have Europe as somewhat of a stronghold. We have Overwatch based in the States. So we always think a bit strategical in terms of the regions we expand into. But we are obviously aware of the fact that China is a completely different ball game when it comes to doing business, traditions, culture, language importantly.

While cArn describes the partnership with B.O.O.T as a "soft launch" that's mainly geared towards building their market presence in China, he says that Fnatic intends to attend more Chinese events, garner Chinese sponsors and perhaps even one day field a Chinese roster.

Over time, it may be possible to activate local sponsors that might want to grow as a brand in the world utilizing esports and Fnatic in that effort. A few years ahead, it might also be interesting for us to create local teams if we feel that is relevant. Today we have a fairly diverse strategy when it comes to esports. We are currently present in eight games. We have 10 divisions, we actually have two rosters in both League of Legends and CS:GO. The next generation of esports stars will also pop up in China? Yes, I do believe so, and with the improved infrastructure. They do have the highest disposable incomes they have, similar to India and Latin America, we're going to see a huge accelerated growth from these regions when it comes to presence at the biggest tournaments. Today, it's a lot of Americans, a lot of Germans, a lot of people from the Nordics, Koreans needless to say, Southeast Asians to a certain degree, but esports is by far would be the most global sport on the planet, so it's important for us to be mindful from where will the next star come from.

Though B.O.O.T does have a team that fields rosters in Counter-Strike — Former Fnatic 1.6 player Harley "dsn" Örwall coaches their Chinese roster — cArn says that their partnership is specifically with the B.O.O.T agency and that they are taking competitive integrity seriously.

"Needless to say, we are both two competing teams and we are doing what we need to in terms of separating these two things to ensure no conflicts of interest in that sense," he said.

However, he says that Fnatic's participation in the China Cup shows how their expansion into the country provides important cross-cultural exchange and an opportunity to help grow the fledgling CS:GO scene in the country.

It was a great learning to also encounter these Southeast Asian or Asian Counter-Strike teams, so that's also something we can bring to the table here being somewhat of a world player in the field of CS:GO. I know CS:GO is becoming gradually more popular in distribution in China. Can we further help that growth? So it's also a bit of a pro-bono aspect to it, right? That we can help build the local community and further validate what esport is about.

Ultimately, cArn says their partnership with B.O.O.T may still be in its infancy, but that he's positive that it will be the right fit for both organizations.

First things first, it's about establishing regional social media channels, regional content distribution networks and ensuring that our content here in the West can also be distributed over there and localized through translations, captions and these kind of things. But yeah, I want to emphasize that we're obviously very young in this relationship, but it's a relationship both parties strongly believe in and we're gonna take it step-by-step.

Sasha Erfanian is a news editor for theScore esports. You can follow him on Twitter.