Right About Now with Ryan Alford - eSports Recap

Episode Date: September 1, 2020

This episode finishes the eSports Series on The Radcast. Ryan and Reiley dissect each episode in the series and answer the ominous question... so what's next?Links for Ep 55: ft. Magnus LeppaniemiVie.betLinks for Ep 56: ft. Charles ConryThe SwitchLinks for Ep 57: ft. Shaon BerryMetro EsportsLinks for Ep 58: ft. Tyler EndresEsports ArenaLinks for Ep 60: ft. Itamar Benedy Anzu.ioLinks for Ep 61: ft. Matt ArdenNba 2K LeagueLinks for Ep 63: ft. Joe IaquintoFatalStryke 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. 

You're listening to The Radcast. If it's radical, we cover it. Here's your host, Ryan Alford. Hey guys, what's up? It's Ryan Alford and Riley Clark. Welcome to the latest episode of The Radcast. It's a summery day here for us. Summarizing the eSports series, which we've just kind of wound down. Feeling good about it?

Yeah, I feel like the whole series actually went really well. And there was obviously a lot of different types of guests that I think we had. I mean, we had players, we had people who were basically a founder of esports in North America, and then we had people that are in charge of a lot of endgame advertisements. So I think we really hit as many tips of the iceberg of the ecosystem that we could have, you know? Exactly. It's been eye-opening for me just the scale and scope of esports and what's happening obviously separating you know video gaming as a whole with the competitive side which is what makes up esports and kind of finding that fine line uh for me was important and then from a marketing perspective just you know really like

during the series like some contracts got closed, like with Verizon and others getting involved or even more involved than they already were. So like understanding just the impact that you're going to see with brands and marketing in the space over the next, you know, five to 10 years. I think we are literally, you know, as we talked about with some of our guests, it's not a new thing. I mean, they've been playing tournaments for 15 years, you know, we talked about with some of our guests it's not a new thing i mean they've been playing tournaments for 15 years right you know probably longer than someone's gonna go they've been playing for 19.4 years actually so don't hold me to that but i've been playing for a number of years this isn't new right but the the adoption rate the scale the awareness with brands

the technologies all of those things are kind of coming full tilt right now. And then as we talked with our guests about, everything's had gas poured on the fire from COVID with being at home and so much more gaming happening, maybe less obviously in-person competitive tournaments, but I think you're just seeing more and more people, brands, entities coming to the space. Yeah. Well, I think even with that, I know we don't like talking about COVID necessarily in the

sense of all the negativity that it's brought. But I think if anything, especially in the esports space, I mean, everyone, all the guests have been saying, if anything, it accelerated all of the things they had been working on. And so things they had been planning for like the next two to five years had to happen in like three months, you know. But I think everything happened a lot. I think they all had a surprising success, though. You know, it's not like there was a catastrophic hit to the esports space. If anything, I mean, to your point, it grew even more.

Exactly. Yeah. And so, you know, hopefully you followed along, I mean, to your point, it grew even more. Exactly. Yeah. And so, you know, hopefully you followed along, you've, you've listened to each episode, this will definitely be the summary of, you know, some of our guests, some of the key takeaways. But definitely, if you're listening to the first time, take some time, you know, in your workout, whatever, and however you listen to the podcast, you're wanting to kind of just start to, you know, unpeel everything that there is in esports, I do think we did an admirable job of kind of covering a lot of gamuts. But at the same time, I think we could do a year long, you know. We kept fighting.

We were like, oh, my gosh, we can just keep going and going and going. Exactly. Yeah, man. We might. We might. We'll keep going and going and going. Exactly. Yeah, man. We might. We might. We'll probably come back around to it. Exactly. So we want to start down our list of guests, maybe?

Yeah, we'll go from the top. So we'll start with Magnus. He was our first guest in this series. That was episode 55. And he works, I feel like I'm always going to say their company name wrong but um uh v i hope i'm saying that right um but they wanted they want to be the place that you go to to bet on games um in-game betting league of legends um those kinds of games um and then again just kind of like what we were talking about earlier with the COVID stuff, traditional sports, people wanting to bet on something.

And a lot more people started transitioning into games they knew, which was an interesting point that he had made because you already knew how basketball works, how football works or whatever. So when you're transitioning to that kind of betting, you already know what you're doing. My biggest takeaway from this is we have a lot of degenerate gamblers in the world because they need yet another place to gamble. Look at that side of it. No, in all seriousness, it's fascinating just to think you go from this space. Twitch, the last 10 years, has brought about watching other people play games, whether competitive league tournaments or just actual

gameplay itself. And now we've reached this point where people are betting on who's going to win these tournaments or matches. And it's fascinating to me, the dynamics, because if you think about how complex for someone like watching American football the first time, we take it for granted because we've been watching it our whole lives growing up. It's how complex for someone like watching American football the first time. Right. We take it for granted because we've been watching it our whole lives growing up. Yeah, we go crazy. It's America's number one football sport. Exactly. But it's pretty complex playing offense, defense, all the rules,

all those things for someone not watching it. Esports and the number of different games and the level of expertise needed to kind of understand what's happening and betting on that gameplay is fascinating to me. Oh, yeah. And just what it takes for them to set the odds and set the everything that goes into it is crazy. But it's not surprising

with how far everything else has come along that we're at this stage. No, I agree. And I think he made another interesting point in his episode when he was just talking about the people that bet on non-traditional games, like the Counter-Strike Objective or League of Legends. They're not the kinds of people that are betting on the traditional games. Which I thought was kind of, I don't know why, I just thought that was so interesting to me.

I think it's back to, you know, you have, the people that know these games, that have played these games, that may not be playing competitively, this is another way for them to kind of keep the competitive, just going and stay involved in it, and they understand the game. And the average person that plays Counter-Strike isn't playing NBA 2K. No, exactly. And I think that was just a –

No, different than I don't watch soccer. I'm a football fan. And a soccer fan would be like, you aren't into that? But I'd be like, I'm not into that. Each one has their own – each person has their own thing. But Magnus was great oh yeah and you know a really great guest really gave good insight and you know we'll link to you can obviously look inside each episode to find some links and different things but we'll put in the show notes for this um as i look at Raleigh to say, we will be doing it. I will be doing it.

We'll remind us to get some links to every guest, both their profile and or their website. I'll break it down on the episode notes. So, yeah, we'll just kind of move along. Charles Conroy, he was in episode 56. He was one of our founding fathers of eSports in America, which is, I don't know why this makes me just like, you know, you kind of want to put your hand over your heart. Like, can we produce this episode and add some like a patriotic music? I just want like a little flag, like waving in the wind with this part of Charles. No, but Charles was awesome. Um, he, I mean, his episode was actually very, very, very full

because he kind of talked about complexity and the beginning of that league with Jason Lake and everything and then how it went into the Dallas Cowboys, and then he went into all the things that he works now with Switch, with the Switch, sorry, the Switch, which is the world's largest transmission broadcaster. Yes, they're helping. Sorry, the Switch, which is the world's largest transmission broadcaster. Yes. They're helping.

Charles is one of the business development sales VPs for the Switch. They help with the transmission of all of these games. So you think about linear TV traditionally, how it gets there and all that. They're digitizing all that. I'm summarizing for all of us nascent uh digital video watchers but they essentially help it get to wherever it's going to go whatever that feed is they are feeding that one transmission of it's being recorded here or videoed here right they're getting it everywhere else digitally i'm sure charles will listen to this or someone, but that's really dumbing it down. That's,

you know, but, but I think that is the most simple way to, to, to discuss that. But there, they are the market leader in helping all of the, nearly all of the pro leagues with,

with doing this. And, you know, some of that plays into not using necessarily their service, but back to when we get to Matt's episode with the NBA, some of the transmission with NBA 2K and everything that's going on there. Not saying the Switch is involved with that because no one divulged that to us, but it's the similar type of technology that's going on that's making that happen

with the broadcast of multiple signals from multiple places and kind of getting them all boiled down to where they need to go. Yeah. But Charles was great. Well, I did want to say, before we move on from Charles, there was one more thing I wanted to say about him, because I think this is when we really started to get into Twitch, was his episode.

Because another point I felt like he kind of made was just Twitch's involvement in like, what's the word I'm looking for? Just like illuminating, I guess, like how intense esports is because it forced like so much more outside money to come into esports because they realized, oh my gosh, Twitch. Okay. How many eyeballs are on it? Exactly.

Yeah. But I think, you know, and then we'll get into the rest of them later, but it starts to shift how you're targeting your advertisements. Yep. Exactly. But what Charles, I think as much as like we talked about the capability and everything, but he talked a lot about complexity. What it did for me was Put into context the power and the legitimacy that these clubs slash teams slash gaming leagues have. And just the pop culture nature of each player having, you know, huge Instagram followings. The league itself having Instagram followings. And the personality. And the personality within them, all of those dynamics.

And no different than probably an NBA team, the Miami Heat. If you're a huge Heat fan, you've got 14 players on the team, whatever that roster looks like, and everyone has their following, but they're all underneath the Miami Heat. But within the leagues, there's multiple gangs, multiple players, multiple sponsors. There's just as much complexity there as any other thing. And kind of wrapping your head around that ecosystem is huge. And Charles kind of put a fine point with that.

And the power with the Dallas Cowboys purchasing their league and group. Cowboys purchasing their league and group, just, again, how mainstream it is and how the big players are recognizing the power that these groups hold. We didn't necessarily talk about this in Charles' episode, but this is just a side note, I guess, for you and I. Do you feel like more teams are going to start doing that? You know, it makes sense for the Dallas Cowboys. They're America's team. You think Dallas Cowboys is America's team?

That's their nickname, America's team. It's literally the largest NFL franchise in the country. Why did I think the Patriots were the largest franchise? Maybe one more, the Patriots. But winning doesn't necessarily translate to all the fans. The Dallas Cowboys were always on TV back in the 70s, 80s. Well, I wouldn't know that. A lot of kids.

No, I'm just kidding. That's even predating me to some degree. I'm just asking. And they became known as America's team because most of the kids and everybody that didn't maybe have a team in their market, they became the national team, so to speak. Like the most well-known broad team. but 30, 40 years ago, you may have known and heard of players on the Dallas Cowboys, but the Oakland Raiders, you had no idea because they weren't in your media market. And the Dallas Cowboys, though, would get shown in your media market as kind of the default team. This is before the Atlanta Falcons and the Dallas Cowboys and all that.

Maybe not the Falcons, but at least the Carolina Panthers because that franchise is only like 20 years old. And so maybe a little older than that, but not much. So again, it's not surprising that the Dallas Cowboys bought it, whether or not the Green Bay Patriots are going to buy or, you know, be involved. Maybe it could make sense, but it's more, I think you'll start to see, I can see Verizon, you know, I can see Verizon obviously is partnering with these big leagues and big teams and being the overall 5G carrier for certain teams. I could see Verizon absolutely having their own team.

You think so? Yeah. Like in the next five years, I wouldn't be surprised if it's on their roadmap. Does it make definitive sense that they're going to do it? Maybe not, you know, because they might want, you know, a broader coverage than just their own. But I could totally see it happening. Yeah, no, yeah, yeah.

And so I could see any large brand or entity getting involved in owning their own leagues. Not just necessarily traditional sports taking on their own. Exactly. Okay, I see that. Yeah, I can see it. I can see that too. Especially when the technology is kind of aligned.

With Verizon, it just makes so much sense. You've got internet and the bandwidth that it takes. And no, people aren't necessarily going to be playing esports over their 5G connection. We're probably not quite there with the latency and ping and everything that goes into the streaming. You still need like a LAN to make that happen. But we're inching closer. But you do have all of the other content that goes on with it, the live streaming, the Twitch aspect,

the stuff that you might would use, the alternative uses for content and sharing and all those things that you would use your phone, whether it's your friend watching and filming you video and he's sending it off or, you know, all the other things where content is being distributed, having that 5G connection and that authority makes absolute sense for someone like a Verizon. And again, not getting down too many tangents here i know summarizing charles opened my eyes but charles but charles really opened my eyes to the no i agree leverage points the opportunities and just the overall scope of the teams and leagues so no i yeah that was i think

i remember after the first two first couple we were definitely like, oh, wow. Like, this is, like, way much bigger than we even gave it, like, full credit for. We'll move right along here. So Sean was next, episode 57. Like, I feel like the biggest thing I felt like he was so passionate about was just making sure everyone had an opportunity in esports to be involved in esports. But it wasn't just necessarily being a gamer in esports yeah you know absolutely so sean berry um one of what was he third or second we kind of got he was third but he was third yep yeah but big

you know has arenas uh opened up some technology arenas where both the gaming aspect, kind of combining both the opportunities to be a space where gaming happens but also opening up opportunities for the broader ecosystem of gaming and getting kids involved with the possibilities of, hey, how could you get involved with eSports? It might be through coding or an avenue that's not necessarily as the player, but it started through those arenas that were unfortunately in a hiatus as he was just getting off the ground.

I'll link to Metro Esports as well, his company. But I think a lot of the stuff he was doing, just making sure anyone really, I mean, because I think his point, too, was like there's more females in this than actually males. You know, like he was like making all these like statistics and we have a lot of those on that episode linked there. But I'll link them again when we produce. And I also think, you know, it's timely. And, you know, Sean wasn't harping on it. But, you know, the minority aspect, the underserved aspect of minorities, while they actually over index in playing amongst younger kids and stuff, and the opportunity to kind of open up those

channels. And I know that he's been sponsoring games and other ways for this to happen while he hopefully is reopening soon. Sean, I hope you are. I don't know what the timing is for all of those things, but I do shining a light on the minority opportunity was important, and I think it's something that we can all get behind is you think about the underserved potential of this market. Absolutely.

Yeah, I have all the respect in the world for him. He's given back to the community over and over again, so I just have all the heart for that. But either way, your Pitt football team is going to have some trouble this year, I think, Sean. Poor guy. Pitt football team is going to have some trouble this year, I think, Sean. Poor guy. Sean played running back at Pittsburgh,

and so we'll see how they fare in the ACC this year. Hopefully they don't run into Clemson again in the championship game. I can't talk about Pitt. I'm a WVU girl. I can't talk about Pitt. All right, moving along. Tyler, episode 58. Tyler Andres, he is the eSports arena. What's a good word?

I feel like he was the idea behind this, right? He and his group of friends, Halo 2 guys, you know, and they were coming in and realizing, you know, you can create a space and design an arena fit for the community that gamers were lacking. He's got a number of arenas throughout the country. He started in California, one in Las Vegas, actually one, and then signed the kind of Walmart agreement

where they took that concept and kind of scaled it down into Walmart. So not a franchise yet, but more of a licensing agreement where they own most of the locations or have a license agreement with Walmart to really, and really the first, as I understood it, the first really arenas in the country for esports. That's how I understood it as well. I remember on this episode, all I can think about is the hockey.

Tyler had hockey gear in the background and he brought out a hockey jersey that was like, I think, was it Target? No, it was a brand. I can't remember, but we'll look back. And, but yes. No, he, yeah, that was a fun episode. I liked all the, how he designed the space.

Yeah. But I like the point of using, not that he's like taking advantage of Walmart. I think it's brilliant though. He took that risk, even though he, I remember he was like, you know, this was like oil and water to me. Like there's no way that that was going to work. But you have a captive audience. You have moms shopping around, you have kids or, you know, even, you know, 25 year olds

walking around shopping, oh, I can sit here and game for 30 minutes or whatever. And he even made the point, too, like Walmart's location just finished the rest of it. The free parking, there's normally a Starbucks or something in a Walmart, or a Subway, you know, whatever. You can get food. You can just chill and hang out.

And then you can play video games. I mean, gosh, I wish there was one in Greenville. Tyler, get on it. No, just kidding. I was, gosh, I wish there was one in Greenville. Tyler, get on it. No, just kidding. I was actually at Walmart the other day, and Nicole was back to school shopping. Yeah. And I was, like, disappearing down a few different aisles, and I was like, I ran out of stuff. And I'm like, I would have definitely gone and got on some Call of Duty or something if it had been there.

Exactly. Exactly. Let's get on at Walmart. We need every location with a gaming center and an esports arena the esports arenas need to come this way yeah but huge community absolutely huge again back to how many big brands have we talked about so far walmart you're talking about verizon we talked about uh dallas cowboys brands are all over this oh Oh, yeah. Secret's out. It's been out. And it is, look, you have a growing demographic of players that are not consuming television.

They're not consuming traditional terrestrial radio. That's such an important point. If you want to get in front of this audience, the future of America, the future of business owners, leaders, and all that, if you want to have your brand in front of them, you've got to go to where they are, and where they are is playing video games. And it's just reality, and the brands that are getting behind this are going to win, and the ones that don't are going to get left behind. No, I agree. Cheers to you, Walmart. All right. Episode 60 was with a morbidity um he uh was our

ceo and founder of anzu.io and this was our in-game advertisement group and this to me was honestly such a cool episode because i loved how he described what they do. So taking basically branded content and making it a part of the game. It's like when you're seeing, you're playing Fortnite or whatever and they have those billboards, or even in Apex and you have those billboards, and then you see an advertisement

for the MasterCard, the new MasterCard debit card or whatever it is. That's all stuff that they do. It's smart, I just, it's smart advertising. And to your point, my generation and all of us, we aren't watching TV. We're watching Netflix. We're watching who? You know what I mean?

Or we're playing video games. So it's just, or we're on our phone. So it's just like anything else. I feel like you have to change how you're targeting your audience yep absolutely and this look when i was playing i don't remember when it was i was it might have been i don't know if it was at the arcade or i don't want to date myself too much here but either the arcade or playing a game once i remember literally i think it was like do it rad or die it's something to or Die, or like a skateboarding game. And I was skating around the town, and I remember going,

I guess I was just meant to be in advertising and marketing because I don't know how old I was, but I remember thinking, I'm surprised there's not a real billboard because they had made-up companies. It would be like always Acme Company or whatever. So it was always a matter of time because these locations were there and now they're in you know synchronizing within it you've got the platform you have programmatic advertising for anyone listening that is essentially any of the ads that you see in the internet the display ads most of them are bought programmatically now

which is just a way of automating the real-time auction and the cost of those ads. And we'll have a course on programmatic another time. But the point being, they are, and this is Anzu.io. Am I saying that right? Yes. Again, links will be in the, a lot of terminology in this that need linking. We will do it. terminology in this that need linking we will do it um but again they are bringing that programmatic opportunity within the game experiences both mobile and console gaming and pc gaming i'm sure

eventually um and they are selling some big deals is only going to grow you're going to see a more organic blending of brands and content within these gaming platforms think about all the the the avenues within them because you've got all these you've got yes you've got the battle royal games and the fighting games and the racing games and you can kind of figure in your head how that fits but think about all the other content that comes with the games and places where these brands could get involved the pre-release videos, the pre-game. And I think of the Madden thing. You do training camp and you do these kind of things.

You're becoming the player. And yes, it's all part of the game, but there's just so many different places where brands might could be naturally interjected. And you're going to see companies like Itamar's bringing in that advertising opportunity in a scalable way for companies no i agree i think one of his the biggest things i took away from that was that larger brands have to adapt the influence that's coming from um this younger audience and so to that point i mean like you know if you're being your you know if you're your player or whatever and adidas is your advert is your sponsor versus Nike, you might actually be a little bit more biased in real life.

You know what I mean? Depending on what you're doing in the game, it's going to change what you're doing in life to a degree. Exactly. And so this one was probably the most down the center of the marketing opportunity for medium-sized brands to kind of get their get themselves into the game literally all right and then we had episode 61 matt arden and um this episode was i mean oh gosh all these episodes are really good but this episode was very well done um there was a lot covered in

this episode as far as um what the NBA 2k league is working on currently and really just it was comical to hear just like the transition they had from going in office to them producing on couches and distributing all those packages but then somehow managing every week they were doing what they were supposed to be doing and it was just like again that surprise success yeah exactly so matt oversees content um and media for nba 2k league um if you watch espn at all espn2 they're on every almost every matt corrected me not every but almost every tuesday night um hosted and one of the play-by-play is my good friend sc Cole. Scott, if you're listening, another shout-out to you. The interesting thing here, it was on multiple levels.

One, getting a very specific look into one specific game and the dynamics of what it's taken. You had the aspect that Matt talked about of literally, because they were thinking about doing this type of broadcasting, doing what they were doing remotely, and doing all of that in like a two to three year window. Right. And what eventually turned into a, I think he said two week window. Yeah, I was about to say, he was like two to three years to two to three weeks.

And being in media and production for a long time, it's hard for anyone if you're not into it. Anyone knows that it's got to be complex and you can kind of go, yeah, that was probably hard. You have no idea what it takes and how complex and how amazing it was that they were able to turn that around and make all that happen. And it's been seamless because

I've watched the broadcast and been like there's no blips. Everything feels like it was produced weeks ago, and they got to tinker with it and all that. Much less a quasi-live broadcast of leagues and games going on from multiple locations. Really fantastic job by him and his team. But just the dynamic nature of what they've pulled off is quite fascinating.

Oh, I agree. And I love just the, he was a storyteller and you could tell he was a storyteller. Oh yeah. Yeah. Just, I love listening to just everything that he and his team are working on and just how they're getting into the heart of creating the storyline. That's so interesting. Like, I feel like some people were wanting just episodes on like, how did you do this story? You know, just like, just things like that, which is where,

you know, I know we've been talking about maybe doing more e-sports things, but that would definitely be something to come back to, I think. But their whole YouTube series, again, the impact and what they've been doing to, to make that happen with COVID going on, the remote broadcasting, and to tell those stories and then to feel so seamless, you know, with using smartphone footage and other footage. And, you know, Matt and I tangled a little bit on, you know, how beautiful the content necessarily has to be.

Even though you would have no idea most of that, and that's kudos to their team making it look that way. Absolutely. But the ability to tell those stories, to bring the players to life, to do all of that, all sponsored by AT&T. Matt, I'll give you another drop for AT&T on that one. We gave Verizon some love. We're not sponsored by either one yet, so we'll give them both some love.

So AT&T helping them bring that YouTube series to life. Exactly. Again, even if you have no other interest in this or any of the content or you're just not into esports, go watch some of those episodes and watch the passion and everything, what they put in to bring the – the players are putting in to win these leagues, to win the games. And, you know, they all have families. They all are traveling.

They're all dealing with COVID and other things. So it's a great story no matter what your interest levels are. Oh, I agree. And it's exciting. Yeah. Like you can't watch any of the videos about a tournament or anything like that and not feel a sense of like, yes, you know, like, oh, I'm going to root for you or like whatever, you know. It's just like it's an exciting thing, which I guess leads us to our last guy.

Yep. Joseph Iacuinto, also known as Fatal Strike, episode 63. And Joe was our guy who 30-time local or 31-time local and regional champion, three-time coaching and managing champion as well. Super, super, super smart guy. Really smart, really good. You know, like sometimes we have guests, and luckily none of them on the eSports series,

but just occasionally you'll have guests where you really have to draw it out of them joe's a natural like he's he's been a commentator natural storyteller natural uh knows how to talk about the topics and kind of relay that in a meaningful way oh yeah um and fascinating just to hear the player perspective the growth growth. And Joe's been along. It's kind of seen the front end of it, you know, being, you know, having played for 12, 14 years, you know, longer than that, but on the pro side of things. And hearing his story from childhood to professional to now commentator, manager, you know, was really an interesting dynamic. When you kind of close off the series we talked

about all these business things and the leagues and the games and the sponsors and the advertising and then to get the player perspective was really great right no i agree i agree he um yeah i'll link all his stuff too he has a twitch account and everything that um you can live stream and this is where you know you also just kind of wish you could just grow up. See, you can do this. You can be his bearded gamer. Yeah, I can be it. I don't know. He'll play Rocket League. That's about

all I think I can play. I can play that and some Madden, but these Gears of War, which he's won numerous tournaments and managed national champions and been involved with the best of the best of the world. I can't even wrap my head around, but I'm just thinking back to my days when we talked about this little street fighter. And I'd just be mashing buttons, hoping for certain things.

And these guys would be like knocking off the lock off. They know exactly what to do. They change the controller settings so they could do what they need to do quicker. You're like, wait, what's happening? Exactly. But Joe, Fatal Strike, we're still working on my gamer name. I don't know what it is. Oh, yeah, no, I need it.

It's not what we said last time, though. Which, just to keep the E from appearing on our episode, we'll not say it. We haven't said any curse words on this episode. I know, actually. Natural, I guess we'll keep the E off since we haven't. We'll keep the E off this episode. You can call me backslap. Backslap.

There we go, there we go, there we go. I'll think about it. I'll think about it for you as your brand manager. Just kidding. Yeah, exactly. All right. But, okay, but where do you see this all going? As we're all finishing out the series and everything,

where did you feel like, I guess, where did your head go? Okay, this is. My head went, I asked every guest if my kids would be able to make a career out of this. And so what I think is going to happen is you're going to see, I think colleges and universities are going to have, whether it's programs or leagues or things, I think those exist now. I think they'll become more mainstream. I think you're going to see potentially, even in grade school,

some adoption or realization that these are legitimate, that video games aren't just wasting time, that this is part of – it's been part of culture for kids forever. I mean, I was doing it when I was a kid, and that was a long, long time ago. And so it's not that it's new, and that's why I don't want to frame this as like, well, yeah, they've been doing that. I think what it's grown into is new, though. want to frame this as like well yeah they've been doing that but i think what it's grown into is new though like this concept of like what it's become is is different because it's bringing in like what's traditionally been a in-person sport like one-on-one uh kind of game aspect to just virtual yeah and i mean and i think you're gonna see I think we're just scratching the surface for whatever mainstream, like, again, back to the schools, back to the arenas, back to Walmarts, back to the intersection of mainstream with esports and gaming in general. mainstream with esports and gaming in general.

I think we are just scratching the surface for where all that's going and the legitimization of it. And the reality, it comes back to this, you know, bring it full circle back to the marketing. You have to have your brand and your message and what you stand for in front of customers. It's about reach and frequency. It's about, and the reality is the places with which that's happening, I don't think television is completely dead because you still have a lot

of TV being watched and there's still audience for it. So I'm not overstating that. But the old to 30 to you know 12 to 28 these guys are not watching television they are not listening to mainstream radio they their eyeballs are elsewhere and a large percentage of them a very affluent percentage of them are into gaming and into e-sports and other things. And so from a marketing perspective, brands and businesses will no longer be able to ignore this as a channel with which they need to be thinking about and learning how to get involved organically and not a forced fake their way through it or let me throw up my logo at a local event. It's got to be more than that, as a lot of our guests said. I was about to say almost every guest said like, we'll keep it on no E, but there was a word that was explicitly used.

That was explicitly used. Yeah. But, you know, like just having, like they will, they can sense out if you're not being honest with them and if you're doing it for the wrong reasons. And everyone is saying you have to come in organically. You have to come in with a purpose that's for who you're trying to sell it to or, you know, whatever, whoever you're trying to engage with. It has to be beneficial to them. Exactly. It can't be your benefit. You know what I mean? It can't really be your benefit. You have to come in there with a completely

different mindset. I really want to thank all of our guests that we had on during this series. Again, it won't be the last. We're going to stay connected. So I hope you enjoyed this series. Lots to take away. We're going to have links to everything. We'll continue to post. We've got a ton of content from all of these things. Absolutely. So again, follow along at theradcast.com.

Follow along at the.rad.cast on Instagram and on Facebook. You can get all the links to our content. Everything else, any final words, Riley?

No, I think that's it. Great. Thanks for watching us live, by the way. Yep. Had a few people on the live broadcast. Hopefully you heard us.

Hopefully we boomed enough. But thank you so much for continuing to listen. We appreciate all of you, and we'll see you next time. To listen to full episodes or to contact us, visit us on the web at theradcast.com. Or follow our host at Ryan Alford on Instagram. Thanks for tuning in.