I'm going to preface this thread by saying I know nothing about investing and have limited knowledge when it comes to eSports.
Recently I've been getting into eSports, mostly League of Legends. I've seen enough to know that it's an addicting game, it's been around and growing for half a decade, and it has a dedicated fanbase. More importantly there seems to be a growing infrastructure not only around League, but around esports in general like CS:GO and Hearthstone. Streamers on Twitch get tens of thousands of views every night and shill different products for hours on end.
I guess I have two questions: 1. Do you guys think it would be a good idea to invest in esports like League? and 2. What would the best way to go about investing/getting involved for the average person who can't just go buy a team?
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For those interested in a potential esports success story, this kid started an esports franchise, got venture capitalists and angel investors involved, dropped out of Northwestern and is now CEO of one of the biggest success stories in League history. His team killed it this year.
http://dailynorthwestern.com/2015/10/14/ae/student-drops-out-to-become -ceo-of-esports-franchise/
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A dying fad imo but that's just like, my opinion man. I used to be real big into esports but now don't even give a fuck, same with my friends.
Sure certain marquee events like Evo and The International will continue to grow to crazy levels, but I don't think there's much of a market for new players in the scene.
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>>1211238 (OP)
Kill yourself
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>>1211291
with this approach at least you get outside
>>1211238 (OP)
fuck no unless you get to meet Stephanie Joosten in person
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>>1211268
>A dying fad
This.
The game is probably losing players or just keeping the ones who are dedicated. Think about it, its pretty much the same game/map as when it was released. The only novelty is the new champions and skins they release. This and they have to compete with Dota 2 and Hots(lol).
If you are serious about this then you could try applying to one of those e sports teams as a manager or take a shot at streaming a game, but if I were you I wouldn't put any money into it.
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>>1211238 (OP)
>>1211241
You didn't read between the lines about this sucess story.
>Went to northwestern, a heavily funded and elitist school
>had friends in LA who worked in venture capital
This little loser is not a rags to riches it is a riches to riches. So his team is doing well because he threw enough money away to buy the best.
He isn't running a company, he is young, which is what investors want and being puppeted through the whole thing.
If you want to be like him, change your last name to Levi and start dating a nice jewish girl.
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>>1211238 (OP)
you are extremely late to the game, friendo
league of legends is ripe for disruption. the game is quite old now
esports will continue to be a thing, though. I don't think people realize how much the current business model is driven by the type of game that is popular right now
WoW dominated everything from 2007-2011 and now that it has receded, it has made room for league. watching arena games in wow was boring as fuck and who's to say that the next generation of games will be entertaining to watch or that teams will continue to consist of 5-7 players
the next game might be guild-based and rely on large 30-40 man parties which would kill the current business model of "pro teams"
"esports" is extremely transitory. sc2 is also another tale of something that blew up and then dropped off hard within the span of a few years
it's a horrible investment for outsiders like yourself. the only way to make good money would be to be a pro gamer who is in the top 0.1% and can attract a large audience on twitch
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>>1211412
All of this is kind of what I assumed, everything you wrote makes a lot of sense.
I'm not looking to specifically invest in League of Legends, although one thing I've noticed about League is that Riot seems to have a "vision" that involves League being around for a very long time - I kind of see it like how Pokemon has become somewhat of a generational thing that has stuck it out over a decade. I think Riot has a similar vision for LoL except with the whole competitive side thrown in.
I wouldn't even know where to start in terms of "investing" in League, nor am I in a position to do so, but I just wanted to hear creative ideas about getting involved in streaming or eSports that weren't "become a pro gamer" or "buy a team", seems like there aren't many here
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Sup OP.
So, I work in esports (sponsor acquisition for independent players, broker signings to teams, formerly worked at a decently sized sponsor, occasional tournament logistics staff, content production for teams), and I'm here to tell you: Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.
esports is hella top heavy. Unless you own a high performing team, you're making jack shit, and you'll likely be losing money at times. Even when you have a decently performing team, the required time investment is so high that the $/hr is shit tier, honestly.
If you don't have enough money to buy a team, you have a few options:
1. Invest in the scene itself (providers, sponsors, producers)
2. Start a team and hope for the best
3. If you have decent capital, look into starting an ownership group for a team.
I'll break these down below. But as a general warning, just don't do it unless you really enjoy the work. It's long hours, weird time zones, lots of stress, all for a pretty small return. From freelancing to full time work, I could have made far more money in traditional industries doing the same jobs.
In addition, investing in esports is also really janky due to the life cycle of games. In 2012, you would have been looking to invest in SC2. In 2013, LoL. In 2014, Dota. In 2015-present, CS is the way to go. Now we're seeing some big gambles on OW (and there are more to come). There is a large chunk of it that's a guessing game.
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>Investing in the scene
esports is a minor player in the gaming sector as a whole, but it is growing. The pleb tier esports investor is better off just putting their money into ATVI, AMD, INTC, 0700 (Tencent), AMZN, etc. etc. Tencent trades on HKG, so you would need to ensure your broker offers access to it. These buys will let you profit off the marginal income that esports generates for these companies, even though it's pennies compared to their core businesses. The success of a game as an esport doesn't seem to have a major impact on the game's overall success, as the fanbase is such a minor part of the overall playerbase, and an even smaller part of the gaming audience as a whole. Even Twitch represents a relatively fractional part of Amazon's balance sheet. This is your play if you truly believe in the long term growth of esports and the ability for the parent companies to profit off of it to the same scale as traditional sports.
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>Start a team
This is how you'll have a shot at making some real esports skrilla. Except you probably won't. You're going to have to take a loss at first, putting up cash to sign unsponsored players or rosters to your new org. Unless you have a serious bank account, you'll most likely only be offering equipment and salary, no travel support, especially if it's a team game. You need at least a few decent results before you can actually talk to sponsors worthwhile. But even then, they won't be giving you much. All the low tier teams that you see with Razer and G2A sponsorships? Yeah, those are just free gear + referral links. We're talking non existent or minimal cash flow.
This is actually where you can start to be a real businessman though. Smaller gear companies, smaller "geek" brands are willing to pay for low tier teams. It's going to be shit pay, but it's a cash flow. Fighting game players are some of your best bets because of this. They tend not to ask for much and there are plenty of stick/pad makers that will pay. Look into brands that are currently in the scene and then approach their competitors. Shit's fun.
Sadly OP, you won't make much off of this. Let's assume that you even manage to get a player with CPT points, a CS team that gets in ESEA Premier, maybe even a Starcraft player who gets top 32 at DH. You're looking at $300/m salaries for these players. Your sponsorships might total a few grand a year. Your first year of profit will likely be at maybe $2500.
Weigh all of this against the thousands of hours you put into contract negotiation, booking flights, coordinating with sponsors, managing social media, working on sponsor decks and negotiating with prospects, doing scouting research for new players, etc. etc.
Unless you're Alex Garfield and tap a huge new sponsor market, Regi Dinh and brand the top team in a new hot game, or Nazgul and have literally perfect market timing, you won't make significant money. D:
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>Ownership Group
This one is actually really exciting because it's finally starting to crop up. If you have a decent bankroll to throw around ($60-75K minimum), find 9 of your best friends and start an ownership group. From here, you have two options. Either buy out a previously existing organization and simply assume control or you can start a new org. Starting a new team will be easier, because with your combined bankrolls, you can actually afford non-shit tier players/teams. You're going to be able to pick up CS Minor teams, top 20 CPT players, top 8 DH Starcraft, maybe even a Dota Major qual team. If you go the LoL route, you're going to cough up half a mil for a Challenger slot, probably another quarter mil for the team to fill it.
You'll be able to get big money sponsors, as well as have the ability to pull in new, big sponsors. That said, it will take time to see profit. Running a major scale team takes a staff and those cost money. You're going to be splitting 10 ways now, so it's going to be minimal income, maybe $8K a year, after management salaries are paid. Tbh, the instagram pics alone are worth it tho, hoes love globe travelers. Also Shaq selfies.
TL;DR - Don't fuckin do it
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>>1211238 (OP)
Before you get into that many specifics when you're talking about a potential investment start with identifying a revenue stream.
Let's be honest - most gamers are broke NEETs; generally speaking.
Major competition/team sponsors are only on board to sell product to their target audience (Nvidia, AMD, others misc computer hardware companies). Since that's not you I'm not sure what you would profit from.
Sponsor a team with the hopes they'll 'make it'? Even if they do.. by the time you factor all of the money you'd have put into getting them gear, possibly flying them to events, promotion etc. you'd probably make a really small profit.
Toss in a kid that's not good at hiding his cheats and your teams reputation can be destroyed the blink of an eye.
Not worth it senpai. No real money to be made there unless you're shilling computer hardware/software.
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>>1212848
No problem! I really love what I do, but I've seen plenty of people get sucked in and lose thousands trying to profit off of the upswing. It's a tough, competitive world, with narrow profit margins until you hit the absolute top. The days of the Wild Wild West are over. D:
Glad you enjoyed. I'll probably post more info the next time this issue comes up.
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>>1213027
Hey, man, what about just starting a Twitch channel and try to scam people into giving you donations?
>I'm a guy
>I want to play my favorite RPG games and maybe new Unreal Tournament + CS:GO
>My voice is fine, but I don't have a cam
Will I make it? And how much time should I invest in this bullshit scheme?
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>>1211238 (OP)
FWTW this one guy in a Hearthstone game named Reynad always said he'd love to buy a LoL team but it would be too expensive and this is a guy who owns a popular website and can easily pull down 5k in a night if he does text to speech.
I would suggest you try to grow a Overwatch team or Hearthstone has a lot of random players with no team who'd probably join for just flights and a place to live.
Also OP, if you could make a Bad Boys team I'd love to see that, just tell them they get extra cash for getting into internet trouble, wearing sunglasses and saying deal with it after a win, or remembering a script where they taunt their foes with WWE style smack talk, you'd be everyones hero if you get really slick and creative with it.
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>>1211241
People always cling to the fragmented and heavily modified "success" stories when it comes to starting a business. The stories you really want to hear are the failures. Chances are you won't find them because people don't like writing about the downsides, they don't like telling the tale of their failure, and truthfully people don't eat the bad up like the polished good. But you learn more about starting a business from the fallen than the risen. As one anon points out there is a lot of story between the line that you didn't catch because you are too invested in the day dream of making millions for playing a video game.
As others have said eSports is niche as fuck, everyone looking to bleed money out of it are already at the table and for anyone new to get in and not fail would be sheer luck.
But if you still feel that you can at least get in some way some how then by all means try, just don't expect it to end like the guy in the article.
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