Industry Sports footwear Headquarters Seoul Number of locations 100 | Website Official website Founded South Korea (2013, 2016) | |
SBENU (Hangul: 스베누) is a casual/sports footwear company based in Seoul, South Korea. Established in 2013, SBENU had opened more than 100 retail stores nationwide by 2015. SBENU also expanded their business by becoming one of the main sponsors of e-sports in South Korea. They were the main sponsors for the BroodWar Sonic league, League of Legends Champions Korea league, Starleague and Global StarCraft II League.
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Creation
Originally named Shoe Farm in 2013, SBENU was founded by Hwang Hyo-Jin. SBENU took S for Shoes and combined it with the ancient Egyptian deity Bennu, which is thought to be the inspiration for the Phoenix in Greek mythology.
CF Models
SBENU League of Legends Champions Korea (LCK)
In 2015, SBENU acquired the roster of Prime Clan, renaming it SBENU Sonicboom before the start of SBENU Champions Summer 2015. The current roster consists of Soul, Catch, do it, SaSin, dan, Nuclear, Secret, viviD, SoaR, and Flaw. The team performed poorly in their first season finishing in last place. They were forced to play in the LCK Promotion Series against Ever to keep their spot in Champions League, where they defeated them 3-1.
StarCraft II StarLeague (SSL)
SBENU was the sponsor for the season 2 and season 3 tournaments of the StarCraft II StarLeague.
Manchester United
Focusing on building the SBENU brand globally, SBENU and Manchester United agreed to terms of sponsorship in 2015 making SBENU the official casual shoe brand for the team.
Manchester United's Group Managing Director, Richard Arnold, comments: "Sbenu is a popular brand in Korea and we look forward to seeing the Manchester United crest on their products. Having recently opened its 100th store and soon to be opening its 100th franchise, we are confident these products will be attractive to our 15 million South Korean fans."
Controversy
As mentioned above, SBENU has been sponsoring various celebrities and gaming events, spending about 8.26 million USD per year, all the while failing to pay in full to the manufacturers. SBENU claims that the agency "HIKE", which is an agency that is run by two former bankrupted owners that help connect manufacturers with companies, has embezzled about 7.1 million USD. This has caused the failing of payment to the manufacturers, who receive their money from HIKE. SBENU is currently in the legal process of obtaining the money and have already come to an agreement with the manufacturers to work together without HIKE.