Michelin becomes an official partner of the RLCS 2026 season

A tire maker has joined the Rocket League Championship Series between the two halves of its season. Michelin said in an announcement published on its UK press site on Monday, March 2, 2026, that it has signed a partnership with BLAST, the organizer of the 2026 RLCS, and has been named an official partner of the competition.

The RLCS is the official circuit of Rocket League, in which teams of three players drive cars to score goals with a ball. It is the game's global championship, as Michelin's announcement puts it, and it runs from online qualifiers in seven regions to two international Majors and a World Championship in September.

Rocket League announcements of September 15 and October 27, 2025.

What Michelin announced

The announcement is short and gives three facts about the deal. The partner is BLAST, as the organizer of the 2026 season. Michelin's title is official partner of the RLCS 2026. And the aim, according to Michelin, is to reinforce its commitment to esports and to build its visibility among younger audiences.

It gives nothing else about the agreement. No amount is stated, no duration, no activation and no speaker from either company is quoted. The text does not say where the Michelin name will appear, on the broadcast, at the venues or in the game, or whether the deal covers the World Championship as well as the Majors.

Michelin explains its interest with the game itself. The company links the precision, control and fast execution the game requires to its own work in mobility and motorsport, and presents the partnership as part of a wider presence in digital worlds.

The figures in Michelin's announcement

The announcement puts two figures on the game's audience. Rocket League has several million active players each month, Michelin says, and the RLCS generates tens of millions of views worldwide over a season. Both are the company's own round figures: the announcement names no source and no period beyond the month and the season.

Michelin also says it has developed partnerships in gaming and automotive simulation for more than 25 years. The announcement names none of those earlier partnerships.

The rest of the figures describe the company. The group is headquartered in Clermont-Ferrand, France, and its announcement gives its size as 129,800 employees in 175 countries. Tires are one of its products, alongside components for other sectors and connected services for professional fleets, according to the same text.

BLAST and the RLCS

BLAST is the organizer that signs the deal. It hosts and produces the RLCS events, and Esports Insider recalls that it signed a multi-year partnership with Epic Games, the owner of Rocket League, in 2024. The organizer is known for international events in other games, the outlet adds.

BLAST's own studio opened the season. The announcement of the 2026 season, published by Rocket League on September 15, 2025, placed the RLCS Kick-Off Weekend at BLAST Studios in Copenhagen from December 5 to 7, 2025. That offline event brought together the top six teams of North America and Europe from the first online Open, playing for a direct place at the first Major and a fifth World Championship place for their region.

Viewers follow the circuit through its broadcasts. For the Boston Major, Esports Insider reported, the matches were streamed live on the official Rocket League Esports channels on YouTube, TikTok and Twitch, and viewers could earn in-game items such as player titles, wheels and decals by watching on Twitch and TikTok.

The structure Michelin is joining has five stages for the main three-against-three competition.

Each split has three online Opens per region, open tournaments played over the internet, and each leads to a Major. The season announcement repeated the structure of 2025, and set the first Opens of Split 1 for November 14, 2025 in North America and Europe and between November 15 and 22 in the other regions; that split ran until the Boston Major in February. The seven regions are North America, Europe, South America, Asia-Pacific, the Middle East and North Africa, Oceania and Sub-Saharan Africa. Rocket League also runs two-against-two and one-against-one competitions from May and June, whose regional winners in North America, Europe, South America and the Middle East and North Africa qualify for their own world championships.

The Boston Major, two weeks before the deal

The first Major of the season was played in Boston from Thursday, February 19, to Sunday, February 22, 2026. Esports Insider's preview of February 19 gives the shape of the event. Sixteen teams took part: fourteen through the regional rankings built from the three Opens, Karmine Corp as winners of the Kick-Off Weekend, and Geekay Esports after a European tiebreaker won 4-2 against Man City Esports. Two organizations, Virtus.pro and TSM, entered by signing rosters that had already qualified.

The group stage, on February 19 and 20, was played behind closed doors in four groups of four, each a single round-robin of best-of-five series, where the first team to win three games takes the match. The winner of each group went to the upper bracket of the playoffs and the runner-up to the lower bracket. The playoffs, on February 21 and 22, were played in best-of-seven series in front of a crowd at Agganis Arena.

Gentle Mates won the Major. Rocket League's account of the event, published on March 4, describes them as a French esports team and lists the roster as Oski, nass and archie, coached by Snaski. They beat NRG, the reigning world champions, 4-3, then Team Falcons 4-3, before beating Team Vitality in the grand final. Gentle Mates had already won the third European Open of the split, and two of the three players, Oski and nass, came from the Ninjas in Pyjamas roster that placed seventh at the 2025 World Championship, the same account recalls. nass scored 12 goals in the grand final against Vitality, a record for a grand final played on LAN, with the teams together in the arena; the previous record was nine.

The Boston results also count toward the rest of the season. Esports Insider lists the RLCS points the event awarded, from 30 for the winner to three for the teams placed 13th to 16th. The winners took US$102,000 in prize money, and each of the four teams placed 13th to 16th left with US$4,500, so every team that made the trip was paid.

Where the World Championship places go

The points are what the season is about. After the two Majors, the 16 teams with the most RLCS points qualify directly for the World Championship, and four more come through Last Chance Qualifiers, played from July to August 2026 in the four best-performing regions. Rocket League's registration announcement of October 27, 2025, set out how many direct places each region can expect.

The season also carries a roster rule that shapes who can compete where. A standard roster of three must include at least two players who are citizens or permanent legal residents of the region it plays for, and a roster of four with a substitute needs three, according to the season announcement. The total prize money across all modes of the 2026 season is over US$6.1 million, the registration announcement says, without a breakdown by mode.

What comes next for the circuit

Michelin's partnership was announced as the second split began. The online Opens of Split 2 run from March to May 2026, three in each region, and lead to the Paris Major at La Défense Arena from May 20 to 24, with three days in front of a crowd. Gentle Mates, Rocket League noted after Boston, are now aiming to qualify for it.

The World Championship follows in September 2026, extended to six days for 20 teams. The previous edition, in 2025, was held at the LDLC Arena in Lyon-Décines in France before nearly 10,000 fans, according to the season announcement, and NRG beat Team Falcons 4-1 in the grand final to win US$300,000.

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