Right About Now - Legendary Business Advice - eSports Series ft Shaon Berry

Episode Date: August 4, 2020

In this episode, Ryan and Shaon talk about the various opportunities in professional gaming, the expansion for minority gamers, and different ways to engage brands.Follow along in the series. Visit our website theradcast.com | @the.rad.cast or @ryanalford on Instagram  If you enjoyed this episode and want to learn more, join Ryan’s newsletter https://ryanalford.com/newsletter/ to get Ferrari level advice daily for FREE.  Learn how to build a 7 figure business from your personal brand by signing up for a FREE introduction to personal branding https://ryanalford.com/personalbranding.  Learn more by visiting our website at www.ryanisright.comSubscribe to our YouTube channel  www.youtube.com/@RightAboutNowwithRyanAlford. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

You're listening to the Radcast. If it's radical, we cover it. Here's your host, Ryan Alford. Hey guys, it's Ryan Alford with the latest episode of The Radcast. The third part in a series on e-sports, up and coming, the innovations that are happening. All the growth, we're really excited for all the interests that we've been getting around this series. And really excited to be joined today by Sean Barry. What's up, man?

How are you? Doing well. Appreciate you coming on. Sean is the CEO and owner of Metro Sports in Philadelphia. Has a good long lineage in sports and events, sponsorships, and sports in general. I know Sean, but really appreciate you coming on to talk a little e-sports and what you've been up to. Always glad to do it, man. It's a pandemic.

What else is there to do, right? Exactly. We've caught people at a good time, you know, with our podcast series. It's gotten, we'll say not easier, but a little more attainable to get some normally super busy folks online. So we appreciate your time, Sean. And Sean, I'd love to just start, like we talked, you know, pre-episode, you know, just give people kind of that background, you know, on you, your sports background. I know it pit. And, you know, just kind of we're leading up to where Metro Sports is today. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, like I shared with you earlier, man. I don't come from the esports world at all. You know, I am very much an alien. I grew up in the Philadelphia, South Jersey area, played football in college, played at the University of Pittsburgh,

and worked in corporate America about 25 years before I launched a sports media company called Junior Rank Sports. And I launched that in large part with the idea in mind that I could create some events to help kids get, you know, recruited and maybe deliver some good messages around maybe character and discipline and academic excellence, things like that. And that company grew a lot bigger and a lot faster than I was really even prepared for. We grew over 400% over the next three years. I ended up in a title sponsorship partnership with the United States Marine Corps,

and I created their Semper Fidelis All-American Bowl, which ran on ESPN for about six years. And so I, you know, I spent, you know, most of my time deeply engaged in football. You know, in fact, the first running back that played in my All-American game was Todd Gurley. And Jared Goff was one of our quarterbacks. So, you know, it had really been heavily entrenched on the traditional sports side and saw that very much as, you know, a way to help communities and help young athletes, you know, interested in matriculating. And I got a call about two and a half years ago from the president of AAUSports,

who said, hey, Sean, are you still doing e-sports? And I said, I don't know what the hell you're talking about. I said, I don't even know what e-sports is. And she said, well, you know, we understand, you know, at your event, you do e-sports tournaments. And what they were referring to is, you know, sometimes we're at our camps and combines, we'd buy Xboxes and Playstations, and we'd send it to the hotels with the coaches and so keep the kids busy. you know, I didn't consider that esports event management, right? And so lo and behold, I get a completely undeserved reputation.

But, you know, it caused me to look at esports more seriously and do some due diligence. And I was just absolutely blown away by the business model and the growth opportunities and more importantly the ways that, you know, you could really impact a larger group of young people effectively. So that's how I got into it. That's great. And so it's funny that having looked at least, looking back in my career, some of the sponsorship activations, I worked on like Verizon business and the NFL.

We set up like, you know, within those, like the NFL stadiums, we'd have like, you know, a Sony or something playing, you know. So thinking back, the roots of e-sports, you know, a lot of people were doing e-sports and didn't realize it, I think. That's right. I know. But so let's talk a little bit about, you know, so Metro sports, like your business now today, you know, so what is, what's, what's, what?

What's happening within that environment? I know let's pretend, at least for a moment, the pandemic wasn't happening, but the core business model there and what you're doing. Yeah, so, you know, I built, you know, Metro Esports for, you know, a couple of different reasons. But, you know, primarily I wanted to create some really unique content opportunities for brands. You know, some that were outside the box a little bit in terms of attracting, you know, casual gamers or gamers that were a little bit unfamiliar with e-sports. in the industry. And then the other thing, you know, for me, was social outcomes. You know, could I impact the community with, you know,

certification or STEM programs that, you know, related back to the e-sports industry or create internship opportunities with some of our brand partners and things like that? And so, you know, for me, it was really about, you know, how could I make or become a conduit to good things for brands or good things for people. Yeah, I love it. So you've got a 7,000 foot. facility for tournaments, I presume, and then, you know, like you mentioned some of the STEM

stuff, how does that stuff kind of naturally happen? And, you know, how long have you had the facility? Yeah. So we, you know, believe it or not, we just done the wiring and paint job right before COVID hit. So we have, we have yet to, to announce our grand opening until, you know, things are safe and we're able to kind of, you know, allow kids to, you know, to kind of work together and play together. But the facility is interesting. You know, I build it almost as a digital version of the YMCA.

So you can come here and recreate and compete, whether it's gaming PC or console. You know, for those that are a lot more serious, we have one-on-one coaching. You know, those that are interested in playing tournaments, you know, we do and we'll do everything from, you know, smash brothers to fighting games to sports games,

first-person shooters, et cetera. We have military Mondays where we just, you know, try to honor our veterans and create some opportunities for them to engage and compete. But the thing that I enjoy the most is, you know, we looked at the e-sports industry and we partnered with some of the local colleges and universities and said, okay, well, if I want to become a game designer or a game developer or a code or a programmer, what do I need to know? And maybe I can't afford to go to college. What does that look like?

And so a lot of the programs that we'll announce over the next three to six months are designed around, you know, how to become a member of the e-sports industry. if you're not a gamer or if you're not a streamer, but you still love and have a passion for either technology or just the space. And, you know, we've got two new partnerships with Capcom and Warner Brothers and Ubisoft. And, you know, that allows us to be kind of a conduit between kind of community and corporate. That's interesting. And it's funny because on the surface, parents and maybe uninformed C.E. sports or video game playing, you know, as an, you know, know, not necessarily the negative side of it, but, you know, a lot of time spent by the kids playing

just the games themselves when in reality there's so many other legs to it and some of other opportunities because you're still talking about highly technically advanced gaming and everything that goes into making the games, making the consoles, and even just the expertise to play now, you know, is like, it's just fascinating the layers that are there. Yeah. No, I mean, there's so many opportunities. You know, I look at it like this. If I, you know, had an event and a thousand football players were on the field, the reality was, of those thousand, maybe I could find five, maybe ten guys that could play in college, right? And of those five or ten, you know, who had the grades to play in college? And so maybe it gets down to three or four. I think it's so different in e-sports. If I had a thousand people in an e-sports tournament, I can find 300. codeers and 200 programmers and 50 streamers and 60 game designers. And so the ability to, you know, provide an opportunity or platform, you know, to engage or educate or enhance or all those things that just multiply.

And that's kind of why I love the space the way I do. So, you know, I saw your most recent, I presume one of your more recent partnerships like with NFL flag and what they did bringing their players together, the NFL Flagg, of this for youth. And I know you can tell me more about it than I can. But, you know, talk to me about, like, what your involvement is in that type of tournament. And what are you enabling? What is Metro Esports enablement in that kind of online tournament?

You know, what's your role in that? Yeah. So, you know, creator, producer, you know, I, for the NFL, just like other organizations, and said, hey, listen, you know, let's recreate to the best of our ability, the digital sports experience, right? So the competition of being on the field and being competitive and enjoying that, whether it's, you know, MBA 2K or Madden 20 or whatever it is, let's recreate that and give young people, particularly during this pandemic, an opportunity, you know, to just compete and receive some of the benefits from, you know, what I think is an awesome kind of industry. I think, you know, when you look at this pandemic,

organizations like the NFL or anybody else have a real interest in understanding that young people need to socialize, right? They need to recreate. And, you know, many need to compete. And I think it offers all of those aspects. And so, you know, yeah, we, you know, we did the first ever NFL online tournament. But, you know, we have cities that are clients that, you know, engage us in league play. In fact, the mayor of Atlantic City said, hey, listen, I want

our entire, all the kids in our school district to be able to play in a league, you know, for the next couple of months, because I don't know what, uh, what they can do. What's the facilitation of that like? I mean, I kind of want to get into like the, the nuts and bolts of that a little bit. Like, so when they come to you to do that, what, you've got players, you've got youth within the city that are going to play and they're trying to enable that tournament. Are you, you know, I know enough. about the, you know, the games themselves to be dangerous, I guess, having played them, I have kids, you know, four boys under the age of 10. So, uh, other than playing Rocket League or Madden,

I'm not too much on every game specific. But like, how does, what does, what do you enable specifically, um, other than maybe like promotion of the event or something like that? Like, help walk me through what exactly your role. I mean, it's just that, right? So there is a registration process. There is a communication process. There's advertising and promotion. There's player matching. There's, you know, kind of rules

and oversight. There's, you know, bracketing and playoff management. And kind of all those things, you know, it is certainly more complicated than a traditional sports, you know, kind of engagement. But, you know, the being able to do

all of those things and all of those things well is what creates an awesome experience. Do you create, like literally within Madden, can you set up these kind of tournaments? Like, again, not knowing. No, I have a partnership with Madden that allows me the licensure, you know, to be able to play and, and leverage that as an opportunity to compete. But as far as the development, on the development side, I have, what shows up on the screen is purely, you know, the developer's expertise, not, hey or mind. Yeah, no, but I just didn't know if, like, you know, if two,

two youth are playing in New Jersey, you know, what facilitates the knowing who won and the bracket and all of those things, you know. Yeah. Yeah. So we have a team that oversees the play and scoring and bracketology and rules and competition and the whole thing. Okay. So it keeps up and tracks all of that.

Is what's been the response to some of the more virtual offerings, you know, kind of with COVID and everything going on? Has there been an uptick, like in everything else? It's been huge, man. I haven't been able to get much sleep, man, because there's so many things that are happening right now where groups are looking for opportunities to, you know, educate or engage or entertain or, you know, one of those things.

And, yeah, so it's an exciting time from the perspective of, you know, what we already knew, which was if you're not, you don't have some level of technology involved in what you're doing. you're going to stagnate. And so we're finding growth. Yeah. What is, what does partnership for you look like,

you know, with some of like the games and some of the larger names that I see that, you know, you guys are partnering with. Do they, is it kind of, you approaching them with ideas

or vice versa? Well, you know, like I said, I have a long history of really successful activations on the sports and the television side. top profile. And so there are a lot of relationships that literally just made the transition

with me from sports to e-sports. Others have been more challenging from the fact that, you know, we're non-endemic and we're building, you know, a brand and a name. And so, you know, those can be anywhere from, you know, kind of a kind of big toe in the water. Let's see how this goes to others that are saying, you know, hey, listen, you know, we believe in your mission, in your vision and we want to get behind it. You know, one of my strongest relationships is, from a company perspective, is Logitech. Their team is so committed to all of the things that I believe in, and that's really, you know, diversity and inclusion in the space, educating and empowering communities, you know,

exciting and entertaining, you know, competition, and, you know, those kinds of things that are very, very natural for me in terms of, you know, what I want to do and what I want this brand to be is already an extension of, you know, what Logitech does on a daily basis. And so, you know, that's one of the partnerships I'm most proud of because there's such an alignment of goals and an agenda. Yeah. You brought up a keyword there and I'm definitely, well, I know it's been important. I've read some of the recent articles and that being diversity. I mean, is, what's the general state of the state, if you say, of diversity in e-sports? I mean, improving but a lot of room to go?

You know, I think that's an understatement. E-sports as a whole is non-diverse. Yeah. I mean, you know, just to keep it, you know, real with you, it is, you know, when you look at, you know, 500 million streamers on Twitch and less than 3% or African American or Hispanic. You know, when you turn on the sport and you see, you know, professional teams or you watch, you know, events on ESPN or TNT, whether it's League of Legends or Overwatch,

it's just not reflective of our community as a whole, right? And so what I'd like to see is e-sports really more for everybody, you know, that, you know, where there is a, a balanced level of representation and participation, not for the sake of doing it, but because everybody loves it. And so, you know, I think that there's a huge opportunity for brands that have an interest in reaching a, you know, kind of more broad and diverse consumer segment of leveraging e-sports and kind of the digital presence and eyeballs, you know, across the nation that are on it and looking for creative ways to do that. Yeah, let's be honest.

what 10 to 12 year old boy or girl of all nationalities and backgrounds are playing e-sports, you know, of some sort. I mean, well, it's not only that. I mean, I think it's, I think that number is like 97%. But what most people don't know is, the majority of the U.S. video game consumer market is black and Latino. Yeah.

So it's over indexed. This is like at 40, 54%. Yep. And then Pew Research did a study, I guess it was two years ago and found that African American teens play more on average per week than any other ethnicity by over an hour. And so, you know, what that says to me is there's a untapped market out there and there's a great opportunity to be more engaging and more inclusive that, you know, that does nothing but create better competition and make it more exciting and fun. Do you think the problem has been, just like you said, numbers speak to themselves that, you know, the African-American markets playing these games at a higher rate,

the Hispanic market is playing a higher rate, do you think it's, they've just lack of opportunity to get in the larger tournaments or games and or maybe just not feeling included? Or, you know, what's the gap there? No, no, no. I don't think it's intentional at all. And I think everybody has the same opportunity.

I think it's exposure, right, awareness. Yeah. The other thing is that, you know, different cultures, you know, compete or be or entertain differently. And so just a focus on engaging, you know, one particular group or another could, you know, mean a world of difference in terms of attracting, you know, people into a market. You know, I think that they're just, nobody's been very intentional about bringing in the other cultures that just haven't participated. So I don't think it's about opportunity. I think it's just, you know, intention. Yeah.

Is changing tune just a little bit, you know, what's been fascinating for me and kind of digging into this more, starting to work and talk to more clients in this space and different things, just the streaming aspect, the just sheer enormity of content being watched, you know, like, That's been a fascinating with Twitch and YouTube and you got, you know, Facebook spin off and all those things. But just sheer amount of content being watched in this space, any perspective kind of on, you know, where that's at, where it's going and just your volume of that? Yeah. I mean, listen, man, it is amazing to me, you know, the conditioning of how we receive digital data, you know, the shorter attention. spans, you know, kids now all the way up through, you know, kind of Gen Z and

millennial, you know, they want clips of entertainment, you know, excitement in a bundle and a package. And, you know, e-sports provides that in a way that's so accessible from a mobile phone or, you know, and so when I think about streaming and content and, you know, personalities, you know, that are making millions of dollars, you know, because, you know, they happen to catch an eye. I mean, damn, you look at TikTok and you're like, damn, why didn't I think of that? And so, you know, e-sports is no different. But I think therein lies also the opportunity.

The thing that's so exciting about this space is the reach, right? And so a streaming audience, whether it's YouTube or Twitch or caffeine or anybody else, it's, you know, being able to reach millions in an instant, you just have to have some good content and be creative about it. And so that's another thing that I think makes, this industry so great is that if you can be creative, you really have a chance to be successful. Yeah, I read one of the top players or not even a top player. I literally forget the name. It was like a mediocre player or something was making $15,000 an hour for exclusive streaming rights on Twitch.

Yeah. You know, like, it's crazy, right? It's crazy. But I mean, I guess it's the same thing as a TV station. you know, you get ratings and you have the eyeballs and, you know, it drives. Listen, the word talent is subjective, man. You know, when I was doing some research just to learn about e-sports, I remember talking to one pro gamer and I said, oh, I guess Ninja is the best, right?

Right. He said, you can throw a baseball and hit 15 people that can beat Ninja. And I said, well, wait a minute, what is it? And it was personality. It's, you know, it's what engages in audience. And so, you know, I think that's so exciting, man, because it levels of playing field in such a crazy way. Yeah, almost like professional wrestling of sorts, right?

Yeah, exactly. The best athlete isn't always the best, uh, highest paid wrestler necessarily, you know? Listen, I'm super convinced that the guys that I love the most in, in WWE weren't the best athletes. It was all about personality for sure.

Yeah. I don't know if Rick Flair was ever, uh, the best athlete on, you know, you might have been, in his early year, you know, maybe.

But, you know, even when he started making his big bankroll, I don't think he was the best athlete, but he knew how to talk and he knew how to play it up. Rick Blair was never dunk in the basketball. That's for damn sure. No, no, not at all. Where do you see, you know, as far as, you know, Metro Esports and what's, obviously you're just getting things off the ground

as far as the facility and stuff once things reopen and, God willing, that will be sooner than later. You know, but what's kind of like the three to five year plan for you? Like where is it all going? Yeah, man. I am so excited because, you know, again, it's what I love about this industry. For us, it's about creating original content that is attractive and engaging. And so some of what you'll see from Metro Eastport over the next.

to be honest with you, over the next three to six months, you know, we think is industry changing. And there's some pretty powerful brands that think so, too. So, you know, I would say be on the lookout for content that you've never seen before. Yeah, that's cool. Is the NFL portion, you know, with what you did with, you know, NFL pass and all that? Like, is that going to be kind of an ongoing partnership potentially with them? Yeah, you know, I think so. So, you know, I think the great thing for the NFL is they're the NFL, right?

So they can do whatever the hell they want whenever they want to. You know, I think right now it's really about for them understanding, well, you know, how much football are people playing right now? Whether it's at the youth level or the high school level or the college level and then, you know, when they're not playing, how do we want to engage them, you know, e-sports or anybody else? But, you know, my hope is, you know, for us from a partnership perspective, you know, we're looking at NASCAR. and MLB and others that have an understanding that, you know, there's an opportunity when organized well to, to satisfy, you know, both the on-field and the on-screen appetites of young people. I'm asking this of all of the people that are coming on our series, having, you know, four boys under the age of 10 that all play, is this a true career path? I have to tell you, I was speaking, I did a Zoom call with a group in Florida over the weekend. So they had about 100 young people on the call.

And we were talking about just e-sports as an industry. And one of the parents said to me, hey, listen, is this thing real? Should I be letting my kid play five and six hours a day? And my answer to her has become kind of a stand. answer for me. And that's really more with a story. You know, I I did an event with Microsoft last year at one of their Pennsylvania locations. And they had a young person, young kid that was coming into their store to play because he didn't have the resources at home, but he was coming in every day. Like a school was open and he was closing out the shop every night. And he was doing

this for months on end, you know, to the dismay of his parents until he won, I don't know, like $6 million in that 40-point up in New York. And so is it a real career? You know, I would say the percentages are higher if you have some type of technical aptitude. You know, as a parent, I would say to my kid, listen, if you want a game, do it all day, but you've got to spend an equal amount of time learning how to code or program or design. And so if you have a passion for the space, you know, let's up the percentages of your success by being more well-rounded. Yeah, I love that. I'm going to use that exact phrase there. Well, Sean, man, I really appreciate your time and coming on today.

And looking forward to following everything that Metro Eastport is doing, your involvement with diversity, your involvement with a lot of these brands. So really appreciate the insights and your time today. Hey, thank you guys for the time and for having me on. Great, man. Hey, guys, this is Ryan Alford. follow along at the.rad. And we'll see you next time.

To listen to full episodes or to contact us, visit us on the web at the radcast.com or follow our host at Ryan Alford on Instagram. Thanks for tuning in.