Even though the crisis is far from being behind us, we can’t stop talking to our community. With the lockdown in place, we decided to move our monthly Meetup series online.
On Wednesday, March 25th, we hosted our first-ever online Meetup covering the trending topic of esports. In particular, we wanted to ensure that sports organizations understood the opportunity that esports, and gaming at large, presents at this time but also how it could feature as part of their overall strategy moving forward. We had two industry experts join us and share their insights and experience from bringing esports projects to life within sports organizations. A big thank you to Andrew McNeill, Director of Esports at Monumental Sports & Entertainment, and Chris Blivin, an esports and sports industry veteran with a career spanning experiences at Lagardere Sports and Genius Sports, where he set up their esports initiatives.
Almost every single league in the world or tournament is on pause right now, but many professional athletes and sports organizations have taken their own league or sport and turned it into a virtual one.
Esports has gained momentum in this ‘content gap’ phase with sports organizations launching esports initiatives quite quickly to connect with their fans. Even though this is the case, we learned from our speakers that it is not a straight shot to a clear ROI with esports, and a proper long-term strategy needs to be in place, with leadership buying into and investing in the activity. Below are some highlights from the session, which you can relive in full through the recorded session here.
With a solid foundation built over 5 years, Andrew shared with us how Monumental was able to quickly put its esports assets to work when the crisis forced the NBA and the NHL to cancel season games. As the owner of both the NBA team, Washington Wizards, and the NHL team, Washington Capitals, the group used their esports teams to simulate the remaining fixtures of the season through video game competitions. The initiative was an immediate success, with the events being broadcast through NBC Sports Washington, and their Twitch channel (an online platform for streaming esports and gaming, owned by Amazon).
While there are some sports organizations taking advantage of the rising popularity of esports, the road to a successful esports strategy is not very straightforward. We loved hearing from Chris and Andrew what they think sports organizations should do when thinking about their esports activities.
How Should Sports Organizations think about Esports?
1. During the session, Chris and Andrew recommended that the best first step for those sports entities that want to launch their esports activities is to have conversations with as many people as possible from the industry, such as other sports organizations who have launched their activities, broadcasters, developers, sponsors, and to also connect with the esports community. To do well in esports, sports organizations must understand esports well and this can only be done through education and immersion.
2. Esports cannot be seen as a revenue stream but as a marketing expense. The reason behind involving your sports organization in esports has to be to engage with the younger generations and to attract new audiences.
¨If you’re able to drive revenue along the way, and are able to integrate this into your other traditional models of how you drive revenue, then that’s great. But the reality is you’re doing this to fill a void to engage customers and to create new fans¨ – Chris Blivin
3. Having the support from your leadership team is key. Not every sports organization leadership team sees esports as an opportunity. If you are the one in charge of trying to convince your leadership team to approach the esports industry, Andrew suggests doing the following:
Use esports to tell a little bit of a story, and create pilot projects on a shoestring budget. For example, as a football club, one way would be to organize an internal FIFA tournament, or a community-based one, and track engagement or viewership. Once you balance those against the investment made, it will become easier to sell the story of why esports might warrant your organization’s budget vs another activity.
¨It’s just one of those things, you have to try and do it cheaply and experiment and really use that to start to tell the story¨. – Andrew McNeil
4. As a sport organization that is trying to approach the esports world, there are some common challenges you will face. Keep in mind that the way you monetize a digital community is drastically different from how you monetize a traditional sports one.
The sponsorship behind esports goes much further than just putting a logo on a billboard in an arena, it is about how you create digital content and offer something unique that the audience cannot get through the traditional sports sponsorship. When it comes to media rights, we are seeing a lot more traditional broadcasters opting to include esports as part of their overall content strategy.
5. The future of esports looks bright. Andrew shared that due to the nascency of the industry, there are lots of opportunities for sports organizations that are looking to play the long game, investing in their esports activities and communities. With gaming companies also investing heavily in their esports activities, the industry will mature in the coming years, and there will be more ways to be economically viable, from the growth in sponsorship, media rights, betting, data, the professionalization of esports groups, etc. .
We recorded the webinar, go check it out for all the details. Are you thinking of getting your esports strategy together? Get in touch with our team at info@n3xtsports.com.