Pokemon Go Earns A Ton of Money From Sponsorships

Last year, Pokemon Go introduced corporate sponsorships as part of its game, as a way to introduce more Poke Stops to the game while also bringing in a secondary source of income for the popular mobile game. Basically, companies will pay Pokemon Go to turn certain retail or store locations into Poke Stops and gyms.

In theory, the sponsored Poke Stops are a win-win for everyone. Players get more Poke Stops in their neighborhood, the sponsors get increased traffic from the Poke Stops when players visit to get items or battle at gyms and Pokemon Go gets a bit of cash. Now we're getting an idea of just how much Pokemon Go is making with those sponsored Poke Stops...and it could be a lot more than you thought.

In a recent interview with the Brazilian newspaper Globo, Niantic VP Mathieu de Fayet revealed that Pokemon Go receives $0.15 for every victor that stops at a PokeStop. TechCrunch followed up with Niantic about this and found out that they actually get $0.50 per visitor. Fifty cents doesn't sound like a lot of money...until you remember that Pokemon Go still has 65 million players. De Fayet noted that their first sponsorship, McDonald's Japan, had 3,000 stores that each received an average of 2,000 visitors per day last summer. At $0.50 a person, Niantic would have earned $3 million a day just on the McDonald's sponsorship alone.

Although the Pokemon Go craze has died down, it's likely that Niantic is still bringing in lots of money thanks to those corporate sponsorships. If each of Sprint's 10,500 locations gets just 25 visitors per day, Niantic could see nearly $4 million a month in sponsorship money.

This news doesn't affect players at all, but it is an interesting tidbit that explains why so many gaming experts still look at Pokemon Go as a success even after its dramatic rise and fall last summer.