As the footprint of esports continues to expand, people from outside the esports industry are bringing their knowledge and expertise to help grow the sport.
I sat down with three experts who have moved into the esports industry recently to get their take on the challenges esports face, what are some of the biggest upsides to the growing industry and where esports are heading.
Ken Ungar, Mark Coughlin, and Jason Moore all have extensive experience outside of esports and have brought a wealth of knowledge to the industry.Ungar is the founder and president of sports marketing agency CHARGE, which recently launched CHARGE esports. He’s the author of “Ahead of the Game: What Every Athlete Needs to Know About Sports Business” and has consulted with marquee brands in sports and entertainment.
Coughlin is the head of marketing and revenue for Team Envy and is helping organize their entry into the Overwatch League. He’s a former executive vice president at Octagon and helped negotiate and manage Sprint NEXTEL’s sponsorship with NASCAR.
Moore is a player agent and CEO at the Agency for Professional Esports (APE). APE currently represents over 30 of the top gamers and cosplayers. He is the former president of Paris Hilton Entertainment and spent a decade developing and managing Paris Hilton’s brand into a Fortune 100 business.
Why have you decided to enter the esports industry, and was there a specific moment or event that triggered that decision?
Ken Ungar: I feel the esports industry has hit an important inflection point. The passion and rooting interest of esports fans has reached the level that this can become a very viable, self-sustaining, profitable industry moving forward for leagues, teams, players and the companies that serve them.
A couple years ago, I attended the MLG major event of CS:GO in Columbus, Ohio, and sat through three days of competition in which thousands of fans showed up each day and stayed a minimum of eight hours to watch the event. I saw incredible fan passion and rooting interest that rivaled any sport that I’ve ever attended over the past 40 years, yet I saw very little commercial activity, sponsors, licensed merchandise sales, hospitality and realized there was a tremendous opportunity to take this sport to the next level.
Mark Coughlin: I think the turning point for me was when I met the founder of Team Envy, Mike Rufail, and he started giving me some data and research reports. I started looking at it and thought if these are real this is something special. Then, I went to the Eleague final for CS:GO last year, and I was kind of blown away not by just the crowds themselves but how the crowds responded to every move the players were making. They knew what was important, what wasn’t important, while there was a lot of shooting going on, they knew exactly what was going on. Everything from the players to the moves to the active appreciation for how good these guys are compared to themselves.
Jason Moore: I was a long-time talent representative in the entertainment industry and an avid sports and gaming enthusiast, a colleague and I assisted in the acquisition of an NA LCS team and during that process I saw first-hand the lack of individual representation for the pros, no managers, no agents, no publicists, even if it is new to this industry it is far from new in the others. I was in the LCS studio and watched the players gather after their matches to do fan meet and greets, it amazed me that it was just a free for all, no team branding step & repeats, and or reps to organize player interviews, manage and handle them like Stephen Curry after a basketball game in the press room. Mr. Curry would not be in that room alone, that is for sure.
What are some of the biggest challenges esports face?
Ungar: It’s still very wild west. The lines between different business models are very blurry, so it’s unclear where opportunities for the leagues and teams begin and end and what the opportunities are for players and their relative rights. All of this needs to become defined in the coming years.
Coughlin: From a business standpoint and a commercialization standpoint, the biggest challenge that I know two games are trying to fix is one of geography and calendar. The irregularity of a lot of these games in terms of their calendar, the continent they play on, the lack of regular league play happening where they aren’t just crisscrossing all over the world basically fighting for purses and instead having a season long competition that culminates in either a regional championship that maybe goes to the worlds. ESL and others have been doing it but there are so many other events that come into play that it’s very hard from a marketers’ standpoint to understand. Many times, the teams don’t know even weeks in advance where they are going to be playing.
Moore: The same challenges that all major sports, action sports, entertainment and music have, the balance of control and protection between the pros, whom are the talent, and their employer and sponsor, as well as, broadcasting rights, player unionization, and individual player sponsorships outside of team…
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