Right About Now - Legendary Business Advice - eSports Series ft. Tyler Endres

Episode Date: July 28, 2020

On this episode of the Radcast, Ryan sits down with Tyler Endres, founder and CEO of Esports Arena. This episode elaborates on Tyler's successful business model. Ryan and Tyler discuss several topics in this episode: The sense of community that comes from eSports tournaments. Influencers v. eSports. Twitch in the gaming community. Successful sponsorships. This episode is loaded with the business of eSports. Tell us what you think! Like, comment, and share your thoughts on this episode. Stay rad. Follow Ryan on Instagram @RyanAlford | Follow the Radcast on Instagram @the.rad.cast | Follow Tyler on Instagram @esa_tyler | Follow Esports Arena on Instagram @esportsarena or check out their website https://www.esportsarena.com/ 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.

Welcome to the Radical Marketing Podcast. Here is your host, Ryan Alford. Hey guys, what's up? It's Ryan Alford. It is the Radcast part three in our e-sports series. It's getting good. I'm learning more than I knew, more than my time playing Xbox with the kids ever told me. And how big this business is, we're peeling back lots of layers to this onion. and I'm really excited to have today's guest.

Tyler, Indris, really appreciate you coming on, Tyler. Yeah, I know. I'm happy to be here. And like I said, thanks for reaching out. This should be fun. Yeah, looking forward to it. So let's get in right at it. So you're the founder and the CEO of e-sports arena.

You know, we'll get into the COVID impact. It's just kind of part of the necessary evil, if you so speak. But I definitely want to focus more on, you know, talking about kind of, your history in e-sports, what led to starting the arena, you know, just kind of like that, that background that kind of led to where we are today. If you can start there. Yeah. So it's actually, I mean, it's one of, it's not one of my favorite stories because it's just a natural progression as to how we started in e-sports. And, you know, a lot of companies you'll see nowadays that start e-sports because they like to trigger word. They see it as an opportunity.

And so they want to start something with an e-sports. And a lot of companies have not been successful in doing so. And I think it's because they're just not a gamer themselves or they don't really have that passion around gaming. They just have it around business. And so it's worked for me thus far. I wish I had a passion about business when I first started this and less about gaming because maybe it would have been a bit more successful atmosphere. But to be honest, yes, when we first started out, a few buddies of mine from college, we love playing this game called Halo 2. by far. I mean, I think, to me, it's so nostalgic and it's one of the greatest

e-sports titles of all time. You know, e-sports was before Halo and all this stuff, but, you know, I think... Halo was the first game. I started to interrupt it was the first game that came with the original Xbox. It was, yeah. The original Halo, right? Halo Kombat Evolved was like there. And we used to play combat evolved too, but that was before Xbox Live.

So we used to like send, it was called Xbox, connected we'd wait like 45 minutes to play one round of halo and it was just like that was our fix that was our fix it was so good yeah we'd be up to like you know two three four o'clock in the morning doing that but and so again that's where it all sort of began was this camaraderie of of playing halo and so then when we went to college um we turned to like our dorm and just sort of like this land center and all by and then uh pretty much had um had myself and my college roommate and his brother, like we formed a team. And then we were known as the best Halo players on campus.

And so then they asked us if we wanted to host a tournament. So we hosted a tournament. And we had like 64 people show up. So it's 16 teams of four in college. I mean, it was pretty great. And we won. And so then it was like because we hosted the tournament and we won the tournament. So I don't know.

Oh. I know. Yeah. You got the disease and the cure. Uh-oh. I don't know. Exactly. So we thought we were pretty good.

And we were on the local level. And then MLG Anaheim came around. This is back in 2007. And we competed in MLG Anaheim. And we got middle of the road. So it was like, all, we're really good at this local level. But on the pro level, how can we get better? And there just wasn't enough tournaments for us to compete in to practice in.

Because practicing online was fine. But a lot of times there was cheaters. You got modded Xboxes. someone had a better internet connection and they had a better, you know, host connection to the game. So they had better shots. So all that, all those variables didn't really exist on land when you played someone in the same room. And so we just thought to ourselves like, man, wouldn't it be so cool if there's a place that we could just go to and compete? Like, we didn't want to go to a land center because land centers, you know, still even today land centers aren't that cool, I guess.

I mean, I don't want to like put land centers down because I used to go to land centers. I mean, they're fun, but like it's, it's not one of those things that just like everyday persons go to land centers, right? It's just, it's just the ultimate gamers go to land centers. And so we're trying to cater to like this overall audience. And so we just wanted to go to a place that was cool that we could just compete. And it didn't exist. Like nothing out there really existed at that time. And so once we left college, we just kept at it, kept at it, kept at it.

And when Twitch sprung out, I mean, then the game changed. Then it was like, all right, now we have to do this. And so we were searching for some buildings here in Orange County and stumbled upon this space in Santa Ana that we have. It's this cool old school building built in 1922, similar to your background right there with the brick. And so the building owner saw our PowerPoint and met us and just loved the concept and was like, look, I'll build this space for you. And all I need you guys to do is just, you know, run your business out of here. So obviously we signed a lease and things. but, you know, that step right there was, I think, the key part of us opening this business

because, look, we didn't have much money. We'd have much money at all. We had a SBA loan that was worth $152,000 and start a business with $152,000. And the business that we're trying to start to scale of a 15,000 square foot arena, you're not getting much. You're not getting far with that. There's what two months of your lease? There's two months of release.

Exactly. And so that was a. That was just our naïveete when it came to running business. And, you know, but we've thus far been able to make it work. So that's, that's, you know, our love for video games and hosting our tournaments back in the day is really what got us to open up our first sports arena. So we started, we had small beginnings, but now how many facilities, is it a franchise? Is it, talk to me a little bit about the nuts and bolts of the, how many facilities, the nuts and bolts of the business? Yeah, well, it's not a franchise.

and I don't know if it ever will be a franchise, it may or may not. I'm not entirely sure, but we're still learning, right? Esports changes. It pivots on a dime sometimes when it comes to which games are any more popular, which game to invest in, which pros, which influencers, things like that. And so for me to franchise this model out when we're still trying to figure it out ourselves, I mean, I've literally been open in five years, September will be five years in Santa Ana. So for us, it's not franchise.

I do, you know, me and my investors group obviously own all the other locations. So we run them out right out of Santa Ana, California. And we are at a total of 19 locations, so 18 Walmarts plus Orange County. So we're going to San Anna. But so you guys have a hand in every location? Like I saw one in Raleigh, North Carolina, which is right up from us. You know, so. Yeah, so I've basically looked at that and I designed that whole space.

And so everything you see there is what I've pictured e-sports arena to be. And so, yeah, these these esports arenas that are inside of Walmart are much smaller, right, like more cookie cutter arenas that we can send throughout the country, as opposed to what we have in Santa Ana. And what we did have in Oakland, however, we did just, you know, COVID has, I'll bet we talked about it, but it has been an impact. And so Oakland is, Oakland, unfortunately, had to shut down. but, you know, it was before it's time, to be honest.

I do think that we will start opening up larger arenas again, but we want to get a network of these smaller ones out there first. Since you brought that up, the, you know, the Walmart aspect, let's go there a little bit. You know, talk about how that came about. I mean, obviously it sounds like a natural extension of the business, you know, then wanting to, I mean, every large brand is getting into or talking about getting into or should be talking about getting into, which is while we're having this series

to kind of inform a lot of our listeners, which are, you know, kind of mid-to-sea-level executives and marketing, things like that. But talk about that Walmart, how that came about and kind of, you know, whatever details you can share on that. Yeah, yeah, that's a good little stinger right there at the end. But for us, it's, Walmart, I mean, some folks from Walmart had reached, out to us from a mutual connection that we had. And we thought, you know, I thought they were just wanted to, like, sponsor an event that we were going to host or something like that. And then one individual came, you know, he's a VP over there.

He came down to Santa Ana, brought a team down to Santa Ana, and took a look at our facility, liked the community vibe that we had, like the look and feel that we had. And we just started talking more and more. and the question came about was, do you think that this would work inside a Walmart store? And I originally thought like, no, like, just no way. Honestly, it was like oil and water.

I just thought like, well, look, ESports arenas, it's brand. Walmart's its brand and I don't really think that they mesh well enough. But then, you know, the more we talked about it, the more we thought about it, you know, obviously Walmart's large, one of the world, they're not a bad company to be, you know, to be talking to. Exactly.

I'm glad you why. I'm going to pause right there. I'm glad you wise up to that back. Make it work, Tyler. Make it work. As you're, I'm not your agent, but if I was,

I would have said, Tyler, we're going to make this work, buddy. Absolutely. And it has been a, it's been a game changer since for sure. Yeah. And we did.

We, you know, we came to our senses and we looked at the way Walmart sort of operates as a company and how we could be at an arm's, arm's length with these guys, right? So what they have is they have these areas in the front of these stores where typically they have like the McDonald's or they'll have an optic center like for the glasses or they do nail salons, hair salons, banks, things like that. So we were able to fulfill at least at some of those locations across the country. And when we were first looking at this,

it was like, all right, well, what stores we want to go to? How big of the space do we need? So we started off with five stores initially. It was just running a pilot. there. And we saw, once they were open, we pretty much saw success right out the gates because it's just the coolest part about it is that the community of gamers don't necessarily care like where it is, right? As long as there's a community meetup happening and it's on mutual ground with other people and things like that, the common denominator is gaming. And so I'll go to this space because my friends are going because there's a meetup there. There's good competitors there. So I'll go no matter what.

And the benefit of it being in a Walmart is free parking for one. Two, if you're hungry, there's usually like a McDonald's or some subway or something like that in the store. And three, you can go grab a drink. You can go grab a seat. You can do whatever you want. So you typically inside the Walmart. And I don't necessarily have to have security. You know, I don't have to really run my own electricity.

I don't have to do any sort of crazy buildouts. All that stuff pretty much exists there. So it made it much easier for us to take this model and cookie cups. it and then ship it across the country. And that's, like I said before, has been a game changer and has seen ultimate success, the amount of foot traffic that we're bringing to the store is really good at the level of the specific customer that we're bringing. So you think of a gamer, that gamer, especially because Walmart individuals are, you know,

kids, they're either parents coming with their kids. So it skews much younger. but then we've got the cloud core gamer that's coming out on an atly basis coming to our tournaments. So we're rearranged anywhere from like a 13 to 30 year old male demographic that's walking into a Walmart because there's an e-sports arena there. Typically they would shop on Amazon. Typically they would go to a microcenter Best Buy whatever to buy the gaming equipment, but now they're going to the back of the store. See if Walmart's got it and they'll buy it right there. So it's a different customer that we're bringing to Walmart that they're enjoying.

and again just provides like an ultimate different experience for the Walmart shopper which Walmart working with them for two years, two and a half years now, it's been one thing I've realized is that I mean they've legitimately the customer is number one. The customer is always first. And if they can make a better experience for the Walmart shopper, then that's what they'll invest in that. And so that's what, you know, for e-sports arena, the fact that we are providing a better experience for a Walmart shopper. I think that they like that a lot. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Is it, it would, what is the, you went there a little bit with the makeup 13 to 30. Is it maybe bringing a little more diversity and inclusion as well with maybe like some gamers that just don't have avenues normally for those kind of things? That's where my mind went, which seems like a really big positive. A lot of folks do. And that was, that was like a total benefit that, you know, I'll be honest.

I've spent five years trying to learn how to make a dollar in e-sports. And today I'm still learning. And I think we're on a right track. I mean, before COVID hit, like, man, we were going to hit the peak of and just like, and just start rolling downhill with the momentum that we were getting. And it still will come. It's just been at a pause. But really what we saw in the beginning was when we had these larger influencers and larger

companies team up with us, they had sort of realized, like, this is so cool. because you're offering an experience to a 15-year-old or a 20-year-old who can't afford a $2,000 gaming rig, right? I mean, you figure a nice, a nice gaming PC is going to be like a nice one. I would say a nice, nice one, but like, it's like $1,500, right, for a gaming rig. And then you have a monitor that you need at least 144 hertz to play on. That's going to be $250, $300 right there. And you want your gaming setup, your mouse, your keyboard, your headset, you know, all that's

another $100 on top of that. So, I mean, you're, you're at $2,000 right there for like an ultimate setup. And that's just, that's an investment. Whereas, whereas playing on an Xbox and playing on a PlayStation or Nintendo Switch, I mean, those are, that's a $300 investment. So hence the reason my console gaming is much more popular. I'm going to say much more popular, but it's more accessible than PC gaming.

But we're offering that opportunity at five bucks an hour or a $10, $15 tournament pass that night for anyone to come in and compete. So if I love playing Fortnite, I'm 15 years old, and I compete in my Xbox at home, well, I'm only hitting 60 frames per second on a TV screen that's only 60 hertz that is much, you know, wider. And so now when I come to East Sports Arena and I play on a PC, granted, I'm still might be using a controller. But I play on a PC, I'm playing on a 24-inch screen, much more manageable to compete on. And it's at 240 hertz. So now the frames per second that they're hitting,

there's no what we call screen tearing that happens when you move your mouse really quickly. It's like a stutter. There's no stutter. It's nice and smooth refresh rate. And your frames per second are like 200, right? 200 frames per second as opposed to 60. And a game like Fortnite with all the building and things like that,

the kids just eat it up at e-sports arena. So we're giving them this really ultimate competitive experience of competing inside a Walmart or competing inside an esports arena. and that's again what they're paying for. And it's cool because we're offering this opportunity to just anyone to come at play. So if you're good at the game but you can't afford the nice PC, it doesn't matter. You can still come to the sports arena and prove how good you are there. So the arenas, is it, I mean, for all intents purposes,

there's so many complexities like you mentioned, the changing nature of the games all the time and all that. And I want to come back to that. but for all just purposes, is this, is this like an old, the way for kids in 2020 to go to the arcade, like, or to go to, or instead of going to, you know, I don't know if there's a Frankies in California, but like Frankie's Fun Park for three hours, they go to the arena and play. I mean, are we, is it, give me a reference for, you know, the arena players or the kids that come or I know it's varying ages, but yeah, Talk to me about that experience.

So I think is it like a Davein Buster? Is there like a Chuckie Cheese analogy, things like that? It's not. You know, one thing that we've really stayed true to in opening e-sports arena has been just, we're a place to compete. We're the home of competitive gaming, right? We want to be your first step into e-sports to come and compete.

Typically, if you want to come, so our hours are like 3 p.m. to 11 p.m. Right. So it's only after school or after work hours. And actually the most traffic times that we have are like 6 and 7 p.m. and onward. Right. So it's typically that means that you've worked your day job and now you're coming out to to compete. I like an older demo. It's an older demo then. It's an older demo currently. Now it's a current because, but what we're doing is we are transitioning these younger demo though because the parents are stopping by. They're going, holy smokes, what is this? I can't bring my kid here. my kid loves to play Fortnite. And now the parents are seeing like, oh, my kid to compete. I want to see how good he or she is.

And so, and that's actually been really beneficial for us, because to grab hold of the parents' wallet versus the 16-year-old's wallet, that's a much better, that's a much better, uh, opportunity there to earn some cash. Um,

but really what we've, what we, I'd say the analogy is maybe like a bowling alley. Got it. Um, to where like, I can go and just go to go, go,

go play some bowling, right? have some fun. I may be terrible at bowling. And actually, so I competed in really completely. I don't know if that's something I should be admitting, but it was pretty fun. We won't hold that against you a little bit. No, no down, Tyler, Bowler. Never call it. Never call again. Okay, we're good. Let's keep going.

Jim Gaffing is. You have your own bag. You have your own bag. Jim Gaffin's got a joke. He says, yeah, some people have their own bowling ball and their own shoes and no friends. I like bowling, too. So I won't hold that too. It's always actually pretty fun. It is. It's fun. It's a niche sport.

And if you're competitive at it, then you can really see the advantage of it. And so for me, it's like you don't have to be that great of a bowler, but you can have a handicap. And then as you get better, the handicap helps you compete against all these other, you know, pro, we're not pro, but like better bowlers. Yeah. It is a competitive aspect to it, but a community aspect to it. So you go every Tuesday night, you pay 20 bucks to compete in that league.

It's fine, but you're still competing. There's that competitive nature to it. And so at night. night is the league nights, but during the day, you can either come and practice, right, pay, pay for a lane to practice or just pay to have some fun. And so I'd say that, but, you know, I'd say that that is where Eastports Arena's model really comes into play here is that we are more centered and focused around our competitive, you know, league nights that we have. That's what drives about 75 to 80% of our revenue. And then the, the hourly rates and then the bit of buyouts,

things like that, that'll, that'll take up the rest of the 20%. Talk about, you mentioned it earlier, you know, it's, I think anything on esports to not mention, you know, and I know Google's involved now on Facebook and all those things, but Twitch, you know, the impact that Twitch has had on e-sports and just the growth is just fascinating to me. When I first, and it's probably been five years, I have a buddy who's big in this. He's actually the voice of NBA 2Ks, Scott Cole. and lives here in Greenville, actually. Greenville, South Carolina, Scott, if you're listening, shout out to you. He's actually on ESPN2. That's how the growth is.

He on ESPN2 every Tuesday nights. It's crazy. But, you know, he mentioned to me, I was probably five years ago, man, Twitch has been around, you know, I guess, I don't know, seven, eight years, maybe longer than that. I don't know, maybe at its peak, or when it started really blowing up. And he talked to me about Twitch. I'm like, you know, do people really like to watch other people play?

Like, I just, I didn't wrap my head around it then. Now I see it in just how, you know, much how uninformed I was at the time. But like, what's your perspective on the impact of Twitch on gaming and kind of any impact that has on your, your side of things in the arena side? Well, I mean, again, that's what sort of added fuel to the fire for us to start our business, right? was we could now monetize the same gameplay that someone is paying to play inside an esports arena. So I'm now monetizing off the person and I'm monetizing off of it.

And so that to us was a really good way to scale up our business. And I think with the way that Twitch specifically has just really catered to more that influencer personal. streaming five because don't get me wrong there's counter strike tournaments you know what ESL's been able to do what MLG's been able to do back in the day when uh overwatch league league of legends LCS those numbers are staggering right those numbers are are absolutely insane and it's it's those numbers are great because the productions there the production's phenomenal um and you can just watch it for free right I can pull up Twitch and I can just start watching this incredible

content for free it to me LCS or, you know, if LCS, you know, world championships for the, the international with Dota, that could be my Super Bowl. And I get to sit down and just watch it and interact with friends and chat and all and sort of stuff. Like that's an ultimate experience because I love the game Dota. So I want to watch Dota and the international. These are the best players compete in Dota.

And so that, to me, is a much better viewing experience than I don't really, well, I don't really play football. I'm not like, I don't have a favorite team. but the soup bowl's on and everyone just has a party. So I guess I'll just go to a party, but I don't really care too much about watching the game. And so that's why the experience of watching competitive gameplay is so successful because so many people play video games. And so you want to watch the best.

The reason why Ninja had his peak was because Fortnite took this younger demographic, it's high school demographic, just took them and said, hey, you're going to play our game because it's free. And then we're going to have these dances. We're going to have these skins. we're going to have this great model that's about a Royale model that's coming out the past like, you know, three years now. And so it's still new to these console gamers. And so Ninja's been able to monetize off of that because he was the best at Fortnite.

I mean, he was the best. And everyone else is still playing PubG or they're still playing Overwatch. But he transitioned over to Fortnite and then totally gained all those followers and took it. So Twitch, Twitch in general, I think really invests well into guys like Ninja and to guys like, you know, like NateShod or these influencers that are just fun to watch. They're good at the game and you feel you're supporting somebody. If you're, again, Eastports Arena, we've been able to monetize via sponsorships, but we don't really monetize from subscribers or donations, things like that because we're seen as a company.

And so being a company streaming on Twitch is much different than just being an individual streaming on Twitch. I'll donate $10 to an individual because I want them to give me a shout out. I want to say my name or say whatever, say this funny comment that I had. And that is where the individuals can really gain and make a lot of money from this and become influencers. And I think there is a difference between e-sports and influencers. Influencers are great because they do compete in tournaments and whatnot. But a lot of times they're signing on at 9 a.m. and playing for 12 hours or 8 hours a day.

And they're competing. Don't get me wrong. But e-sports is an ecosystem. and I think these influencers are a piece of the ecosystem, but I think that they're really making the most amount of the way just because they're fun to watch, they're funny people. And surprisingly enough,

they can actually, they should be good at the game too. But yeah, Twitch has definitely changed it and made gaming just something of just a cool topic to talk about. Because back when I was in college, I wasn't updating my Facebook status saying, I just played eight hours of Halo 2 last night,

eight hours of College of Duty. Like, you didn't do that because, girls didn't think that was cool right so but now now you can say it and and and with the way twitch has created a community around and and you know a lifestyle around it it's a twitch has done a lot for gaming for sure do is there any hope for me that uh and i know there probably are but uh in general i know there's not but uh but wanting like a street fighter two tournament or like mortal combat like that's that's what you like my my fingers i have arthritis still you know from the button mashing of Street Fighter 2 with, you know, kicking in Bice's ass.

Yeah. You know. Street Fighter 2 Turbo. My brother and I bought that from Walmart back in the day. I remember when we first got it, my mom would take us to that. And my brother and I were so pumped. We were like, one of the first ones to have Street Fighter 2 Turbo on Super Nintendo. And we were walking out of the parking lot going, can't wait to go home and play Street Fighter 2 Turbo.

Like bragging, like people were all like, oh, dude, they got it. And so my brother and I always say that, Turbo. No, so we would, every night, every Wednesday night, we were hosting Wednesday night fights with a company called Level Up Gaming. And one of the legends in the scene, Alex Valle, Street Fighter legend, hosted. And so we get, we get roughly 300 people plus like every Wednesday night coming out and playing Street Fighter, playing Smash Brothers, playing Tekin, playing Mortal Kombat. So that's all there. And then we would occasionally have retro tournaments to where, yeah, Street Fighter 2 or Street Fighter 2 turbo would be featured game that night to come and compete.

So it's out there for sure. Yeah. Where to find it is a challenge. If you're not a part of the scene, you know, there's a, you got to typically go to like the tournament platforms and just search in your area. Like Smash GG is really good for the fighting game community. So you go to like that website and then search for like, you know, the type of games and things like that. I had like the spin kick fireball combo that you nobody wanted any part of.

Yeah, yeah, you and everyone else. Yeah. Yeah. Fighting games is the best because that's, again, that's a one-ve-one. It's a mono-e-mono. So it's like, hey, it's like kind of money matches, right? I'm going to put 20 bucks down. I know I'm going to beat you and stuff, right?

So, like, that's where I think the real competitive nature comes out and why it is successful. So come out to Wednesday night fights and let's see it. I know. When I get out to O'Calie, I'll make a stop in once all this crazy to sell it. I know. What's the, where's everything headed and like where, you know, I always, been asking all our guests this, you know, maybe your perspective for how I know how the Nikes and Walmarts and Adidas and Monster energies get involved. They throw money at it, you know,

and they, you know, you've got to be organic. I think they're all doing a pretty good job, the big brands. But the medium size businesses that want to, you know, kind of leverage this target and kind of get involved, any, any pointers tips, you know, perspective on ways for, you know, that's accessible for, you know, the brands that don't have, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars or millions. To invest in it, yeah. Or just get involved or getting some sponsorship or stuff like that.

Well, so like that, sponsorship back in the day with Eastport, I mean, if you look four or five years ago, I think that sponsorship, sponsorship right now is, if you look at what it was four or five years ago, to what it's now, and like you said,

Adidas, Nike, and even Walmart have sort of created this organic way to get involved with these sports, which is fantastic. Back in the day, it was, hey, we're doing this big event. We're renting out this convention center, renting out this hotel bar and it's going to cost me tens of thousands of dollars. So I need to recoup that cost.

So I'm going to recoup it with sponsorship dollars to help pay for this event. And this event started getting, then there was this event, but this event, this event, this event, this event, all over the country. And so now you're competing against, you're competing against e-sports. And that was, you know, once it became like, what's counter strike and, you know, League of Legends and Overwatch and all these, all these bigger events started coming out. And then if we were going to host a Counterstrike tournament,

well, we had to make sure we got the pros to come out to our tournament so we can get the viewership because I need this viewership to leverage sponsorship sales. And if I didn't hit that viewership because these Counterstrike pros went to this tournament over here, now of a sudden I'm not getting that viewership and my sponsors are unhappy. And so a lot of sponsors,

I think, became very unhappy in the beginning because they would pay hundreds of thousands of or $10,000 to sponsor an event to pay for the to pay for the event essentially. Yeah. Right. And then the event didn't yield the results that it wanted to because it was too competitive. There was so many other events going on at that same time. And so the certain weekends were like, oh, we have to do it this weekend because there's no other countertruck event happening this weekend or no other League of Legends event happening this weekend. So I think a lot of sponsors got, you know, had a bad taste in their mouth for the e-sports originally.

And also, two, e-sports was being run. by 25-year-olds. So 25-year-olds who know how to run businesses are few and far between and speaking from experience with myself. And so sponsors right now, I would say, you know, and what I've been able to really think about and able to accomplish has been consistency. So if you can grow with a sponsor, I think that that's key. And if you can develop a concept in which what we're doing, for instance, is we're starting

our semi-professional ecosystem to where we are going to be finding these everyday players and who, you know, again, are good players, but don't really have that streamer following, don't really have the, you know, haven't won in a lot of tournaments because they don't really know where to go to these tournaments. So we want to provide a tournament space for everyday players to become pros. Yeah. So because we've got, you know, decent connections, we've been able to solidify a lot of larger brands and medium-sized brands to sponsor esports arena's ecosystem

that is a consistent series of events to where we're finding pro players and we're actually going to be sponsoring these pro players by giving them a brand name to represent. So like Pringles, for instance, if you want to be the Pringle's player, you have to compete in our series of events and then you get to dawn the Pringle's jersey. And actually, I have one, I'm just thinking about it.

Oh, I'm like literally right there. I could probably bring out this show you real quick. Oh, nice. Literally Mr. Bringle here. That's sweet. Kind of like a hockey jersey. It is. It is.

And if you notice in my background, I'm a hockey fan. Oh, yeah. Except on that. It's the reason of it's hockey stuff. But I think for a sponsor to get involved with something, don't just sponsor an event because a lot of times it may not yield the results that you want. And the return on investment can be pretty low. but I think if you can work with an organizer who is pretty authentic to the scene

and can bring your logo and your brand to life as opposed to just slapping it on a screen and getting tens of thousands of dollars to help pay for this event, then that's a better opportunity for a sponsor. To grow with a tournament organizer, to grow with a brand, to grow with an influencer, I think is a way as sponsors to be. A lot of times,

like I'd be willing to do things that are like, are you have any product great we'll sponsor your product but you give us a piece of your product so therefore you don't necessarily have to have i'd seen this a lot in product with podcasts right like me undies and um you know um what's the dollar shave club things like yeah like you get you get a piece of whatever you sell based off of your promo code and things like that and i think that's a that's a really cool way to market because if it's if the product's going to sell the product's going to sell and if if you know the radcast is pushing that product or if he sports is pushing that product and I'm saying use promo code e-sports, then all of a sudden, like, yes,

I'm getting that revenue. And I would do that all day long because if I believe in that product, I think that product's going to sell. I think that's a great way for sponsors to get involved because it's similar to podcasting, right? Like podcasts sort of niche, but at the same time, it's a massive audience there. And there's a ton of competition too. So I do think that e-sports and podcasting are actually very similar. Is any team sponsorship for, you know, the overseas sports arena?

building teams? I mean, you kind of talked a little bit about that saying, you know, bringing these mid-level players and trying to get into a platform. But, I mean, is building teams in your future or part of the plan? I'm not going to say no. I think that, yeah, there is an opportunity for us to, to, I mean, we have so many players that just walk into our facilities. And we've had a lot of players that turn pro and they'll sign with 100 thieves and they'll sign with Face Clan. And sign with TSM, whatever it is, but they've started at Eastport Arena because, look, there's one thing to get it to play at home. And we were talking about earlier earlier, but I would never take it with a home at home gaming experience. Like that to me is just the ultimate giving experience for sure.

But it's different when you're on a stage and other people are watching you and you have to compete, you know, against all these other people. Like that, that's the testament of a true competitor, whether or not you or she's, you know, really good at the game or not. Because you can be good in your own home for sure because you're comfortable there. but can you be good in an uncomfortable situation? And I think that that's where e-sports arena comes into play here. So if I'm already finding these pro players and I'm giving them a start in their career, I'd like that, first of all. And as long as I could continue to make dollars and cents from just that model,

then I'll just stick to what's good, right? If it's not broken or fix it. But if there's an opportunity for me to find a pro player, say, wow, this kid's going to be a superstar, you know, two years from now. Then, yeah, there's a possibility of Eastport's arena signing this player. Yeah. And giving, you know, him or her a chance to succeed and hopefully benefiting from what they're benefiting from too. Yeah.

Is what's the, is it just like get the pandemic over as fast as possible? I didn't want to spend much time on this, you know, but it's, you know, to ignore it. It's depressing. is to pray yeah exactly uh yeah it's not good not good for uh radio or uh you know two men crying is not good for uh podcast but uh yeah um but for real like what's what's it look like it's it's rough it is absolutely rough i think um you know when it first started i was definitely naive i thought like okay wow so i just got I just bought myself two months of extra time to prepare for our semi-professional league that we're calling series E. And I thought like, all right, we got a couple months to prepare for this. So sweet. And then I realized that, you know, that's not the case. Right. A couple months or more months. And then people's thoughts of normalcy is different. And, you know, Eastports Arena, we, we sanitize things down, right? You know, typically because no one likes to wear the same headset that someone else just wore. But now no one likes to wear the same headset that someone else wore.

right like now that's a big thing no one wants to use the same mouse that someone else used and that's what we offer I mean we're a land center you know by day and you know you come out and you compete and I think that like yeah we push the pause button for sure and we are waiting for things to to flatten out and I I follow Mark Cuban on Twitter a lot and I think that he's obviously smart right and so he had said something about you know, this is a time for you as a company to, you know, either stay in business or grow, right? And, and I've, I've been going stir crazy. My mind, it was just thinking like, well, what's the next thing? Like, how can I get out of this?

Or what can we, what can we invest in? Or how can I, you know, be stronger out of this? And I think that for e-sports arena, we've had a lot of competitors coming to the scene and try to do what we're doing. and, you know, we've taken punches to the stomach and all sorts of stuff of losing, you know, contracts and losing people. But it's, we're still here. And as long as I can say that we took that punch in the gut of COVID, but we're still here, then I think that we're, we'll be much better off and much more successful post-COVID, whenever that may be, than any of the competitors that are out there.

I've got an opportunity with, with Walmart, right, to expand into, into hundreds of stores or hundreds of locations. I mean, they got 4,200 stores across the country or something like that. So there's a bunch of stores. So, you know, as long as I can focus on what our strength is and what the competitor's strengths have and invest into that, then post-COVID, if we're strategically placed at the right time, then I do think that we can come out of this much stronger than we were going into it. So, and that's where, that's where I'm trying to focus in on is, is focus on what's going to

set us up more for success post-COVID that our competitors aren't doing or that the competitors are scrambling trying to figure out as well and why we're going to be more successful out of the gates. I think that's a great mindset. I think that's where, uh, the most successful people are is focusing on what they can control and, uh, stay in, stay and focused on that. And look, 4,200 stores. Hey, that's a lot of, hey, you can stay busy just with that, building out, yeah, even half that in 2,000 stores building out. That'd be wild. That would honestly be wild.

And to see the brand that we just created because we're a couple of buddies that just loves to play video game to be a nationwide brand that, like a 12-year-old kid who sees and goes like, what is that? I want to become a pro gamer because of Eastport arena because of my time. Like that, that's a dream, ultimate dream for sure. My last question, Tyler, I've asked every guest this. So I have four boys under the age of 11. And they all are gamers of some sort.

Is this a legitimate career path? They play sports too. So they're in and out. I think if they play sports for sure, because the thing is, they have that competitive nature for sure. It is. I do think that there's the, you know,

because here's the thing. like I'm not going to be LeBron James. Sure, I'm 6-3, but I'm not, I'm not, you know, I'm not necessarily built for basketball. I'm not as, you know, physically trained as well for that. So I think that a lot of people think that they can become a pro gamer, right? And a lot of, a lot of dads, a lot of parents go, oh, my son, he was once in time, like, number one in the world at this or something like that. I mean, everyone loves to fluff up their kids and pump their tires, right?

And so I think that for that, it's as long as, as a. parent you can support it but at the same time like you got to go to these competitions and that's like I said before it's like competing at home is is one thing but going out and competing on a stage with other people watching and it's top 10 and you're sitting there and you've got you know four or five people just behind you that are watching you see how good you are if you can remain focused on your game and not let that distract you. I think there's a real shot at being a solid competitor and, you know, winning some money. Like, don't get me wrong, like, I'm not going to be a pro bowler, but I want some money, you know, bowling. And I think that as long as you can pinpoint whether

or not, yes, I'm good enough to go that path to become a pro. You can figure that out pretty early on. I'd say, you know, about 15, 16, you can really figure that out whether or not you can be a pro gamer or not. So it's worth investing in now. They're under 11. In other words, every millionaire has six streams of revenue or income. It can be one of those. It can be one exactly. But not the one. It's tough just because so many people play video games, right? Some people play video games, but also too, if your kids love it. And same time, I love it because of the community aspect. Sounds like all four of them, they've got to, you know, they can all be competing with each other, which is really cool. They got to, they got

friends that they compete with. I was, you know, I love the fact that if, if a kid's playing video games in his basement and he's that typical, you know, gamer profile, drinking Mountain Dew, eating Doritos in the basement, you know, whatever.

I hate that analogy, but, you know, a lot of... My brain went right there. I mean, I saw that guy, right? I saw that guy. With a Taco Bell, Taco, uh, a Mountain Dew slushy, and, uh, yeah, that's him. That's your stereotypical.

Right. I mean, it's so terrible because that's no longer it, right? But there are those folks out there. And there's a lot of introverts in gaming, right? And the moment that that introvert steps out from his at-home gaming experience and then finds a friend at Eastports Arena or finds a friend at a land center, then it changes your perspective on esports, changes your perspective on gaming, and gives you an outlet and you find what he's interested in and, you know,

a type of food and restaurants they go to, It is. It's a camarader. It's a community. And that to me is the best part about gaming and e-sports. And as long as I think your four boys can find solitude in that and find new friendships, I think that that's, it's worth investing in at that point. I love it. Tyler, man, I really appreciate your time. It's been great talking with you. I think we could do it for a couple hours, probably, but I'm going to let you. It's been fun. Tell people where they can kind of keep up with all things. E-Sports Arena, all things, Tyler. Yeah, so I know.

It's one thing I haven't really done is built out my own personal platform. I usually try to stay behind the scenes. You got to get out there, man. I know. I got to get out there. ESA underscore Tyler on Instagram. I think it's ESA Tyler on Twitter is where you can find me. You'll just get a lot of ESPortchranic content and Anaheim Ducks content from me.

That's pretty much all you'll get. But I typically try to. I'll occasionally throw my opinions out there, which I'd like to do more of. But all things, ESports Arena, it's at ESports Arena on all social handles. And then our website, esportsRena.com. That'll show you all of our locations where we're at. We are open in some locations. I just call ahead of time.

Limited hours right now and limited occupancy right now. But join our online tournaments because they're awesome. We're doing a lot with Apex right now. A brand new game that came out with Riot games. And we're going to be bringing Fortnite back and maybe doing some stuff with Halo again. So exciting stuff coming up and we'd love to support. So I really appreciate you guys reaching out. This has been a lot of fun.

Appreciate it, Tyler. All right, guys. It's been episode three in the ESports series. Really appreciate Tyler coming on. You heard where to follow him. Keep up with everything. Esports Arena. Follow along with us at Radical underscore results on Instagram.

or the radcast, d.raddcast on Instagram, and we'll see you next time. To learn more about radical, visit radical.company on the web or follow Ryan on Instagram at Ryan Alford. Thanks for listening to the Radical Marketing Podcast.