Right About Now with Ryan Alford - Esports Series ft. Magnus Leppäniemi

Episode Date: July 14, 2020

Ryan sits down with Magnus Leppäniemi, VP of Marketing and Head of Esports at Esports Entertainment Group. This is the first episode of several in the Radcast's Esports Series. Magnus and Ryan discuss the growth of Esports and it's many layers. Magnus breaks the ice in the categories of gambling in esports, sponsorships, and twitch. Follow along in our series! Instagram: @the.rad.cast and @RyanAlford | Visit our website for more https://www.radical.company/ For more information with Magnus and his work, visit https://esportsentertainmentgroup.com/ and www.vie.bet 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. 

Welcome to the Radical Marketing Podcast. Here is your host, Ryan Alford. Hey guys, it's Ryan Alford. Welcome to the latest edition of the Radcast, the Radical Marketing Podcast. The first of a month's long, we'll call it four to six week series on the up and coming segment that is eSports, video gaming. As an avid Nintendo player growing up, it excites me in a lot of ways, even though I have children at home that play way too much Fortnite, which I'm going to get into a little bit with our guest. But really excited

to talk about esports, the growth of it from a marketing perspective, the growth of it from a platform perspective. There's so many layers to esports, one of which I'm excited to get in with our guest today, Magnus Lepanemi. Am I saying it right, Magnus? We went over this pre-show, but I'm trying, man. Hi, Ryan. Yeah, you're doing good. You're doing really good. It works. Good, good, good. He is the VP of Marketing, the head of eSports, an eSports entertainment group.

And Magnus, really appreciate you coming on the Radcast today. Thank you for inviting me and thanks for having me at the podcast. Great. You know, Magnus, I want to get into it. As I was setting up a little bit for the episode, a lot of layers of the esports really want to rack into your knowledge base. But I think we'll start with your background in business and industry in the esports arena. And then we'll kind of go down the path of esports gambling which is going to be i think a fascinating topic for a lot of our listeners that don't realize the growth of that area but magnus if you could just start let's let's hear a little little bit about your background

yeah my background has been in sales and marketing for a long time and actually started working with selling nintendo video games already back in the 1994 for the Nintendo Entertainment System there. That's where it started but that wasn't the esport at that time. I mean I didn't know about esport at that case but actually a little bit later on jump make a jump as I said to 2028-29 there when I was working at the Nordic distribution company called Panvision where Capcom was one of our clients that we worked with and they released Street Fighter 4. That's where my first entry into esports was. And I was meeting actually the people over at DreamHack that came to me and said,

hey, you should do esports. It's huge. Fighting games are huge. Esports, gaming, what is that? I heard about DreamHack and it's like it's usually on the weekend why do i go there i work monday friday so those kind of things but that was my first entry into that space and that's where i started working with those guys uh it was thomas patrick and they're still at the at the dream actually they've been there for a long time it's a really good meeting those guys to be there. So that's my entry. And then I started at the DreamHack in 2013.

Came from, actually from Panvision over then to DreamHack. And that was an interesting move. I met Stefan who hired me and said, you're never going gonna have a day that looks the same for when you started dreamhack and it has been a crazy ride from what when i'm started i mean when i started dreamhack we were 13 people i was number 14 there we did i think we remacted four maybe six events that year and then it actually took off i mean we entered into the US markets in 2016. We did one event in Austin in 2017, three events. We added in Germany, France, Spain. It was a crazy ride. That's my whole thing there. As I said, I've been working with partnerships for Dreamhack since that part, mainly focusing on the US side for Dream dream act already in 2015 where i spearheaded

dream x partnership saves for the u.s events coming in 2016 what's um you know you said you said a keyword there that i'm going to call out because of how many quarters i spent at the arcade on street fighter like do you i mean, I think I could have started seven businesses with the amount of, uh, quarters I put in the machine. One of the greatest kind of, uh, you know, I don't know, I'm not a platform, but just game, uh, enigmas of all time, uh, was Street Fighter. I just remember like, so you worked on Street Fighter four? Yeah, I worked on Street Fighter 4. Yeah, we launched that in the Nordics together with Capcom. I mean, it's crazy, as I said, I mean, how big that game was. I mean, it feels like we're missing the Street Fighter,

I think, five years out. But it's not that big as it was at that part of that. But as I said, it's a game that really everybody can play, everybody can be there. Even if you're a bottom basher, same as am i'm just hammering the bottom so if you actually calculate the moves you know how to do that then you know the best people are even calculating the frames happening there so it's crazy the fireballs that i would throw with kin you know i would take out bison before like you know like all these character names are coming back to me.

And I guess you had one special move that you always use. Oh yeah. Yeah. Well, I had at least three. I would pull that, uh, that spinning kick off like right in the perfect time. And then, uh, yeah, no one had a chance except for some of the big players. But, uh, so what's, I mean, so where's, what are the big games now? My kids are playing Fortnite. I know a lot of the first-person, third-person arena game shooters get into some of those, but League of Legends, Counter-Strike.

Where's most of the activity? I know it's universal called eSports, but is there segments that are going faster than others? I mean, as I said,

I mean, saying eSports, it's like saying sports. So many different games in there. And usually, it is the traditional ones that are the biggest ones.

League of Legends, Dota, Counter-Strike. Of course, the three biggest ones that has the most viewerships, that has the most teams, that has a huge ecosystem for both tournament organizations or teams to survive and be in.

And then you have the up-and-comers like, as I said, Fortnite is coming there, Overwatch League, Call of Duty League, those are also coming in there, as I said. And, sorry, Rocket League is a great game, but they're actually building that ecosystem and Rainbow Six of Four. There are games that have been

for a long time, as the first three I mentioned, the other ones are coming there. So I think it's great to see that there's more games coming into the ecosystem. Both tournament organizations can survive, but also teams can be there. So that's great.

But as I said, I would say an up-and-coming segment that we're going to watch and see more coming is the mobile games. That's going to be huge. I mean, not everybody can afford a high-end PC that you need to compete in esport games. I mean, but everybody has a mobile and gives you the same capacity to play on. So I think that's the huge coming. And also with new games as Fortnite or PUBG Mobile or Call of Duty is there, perfect. Those are really going to make sure that I think esports on mobile is going to be the one

that actually grows really fast here what um talk a little bit about your role now as you know head of esports at the at the company and the gambling side let's transition a little bit into that in your role i mean as i said esports esports entertainment has two entities right now we bought Argyle who is in UK traditional sports and casino betting and then it's YGG who is the esports betting part we're not going to have the traditional sports books there

we're not going to have the traditional casino thing it's all going to be esports and gaming so that's something we're really building out there we want to be the best so be the best go to sites when you want to bet on esports and gaming. So that's something we're really building out there. We want to be the best. So be the best or the go-to sites when you want to bet on esports and gaming. So if you want to bet on the, if you are

a gamer, you're probably going to look at the Counter-Strike or League of Legends or Dota games. You don't look at traditional sports. That's one of the categories we really want to be in. are actually they think about the games they are very knowledgeable about the games they know what they want to bet on they also have that kind of in-game

betting what's happening what's going to be the next part what's those kind of things that's one of the target groups and that's really interesting how can we talk to them is that through sponsorships is that through activations? How do we build that community? And that's one of the things we also want to see, that we are building an esports community. We are a part of the esports community in there. What's the profile

of the game? I'm sorry to interrupt. What's the profile of the average gambler of esports? Is it a gamer themselves? I mean, there's two categories. One of the traditional ones is that the people that play Counter-Strike, those are about 21, 24, and they want to bet on the games they know

and the teams they vote for. Really, you have those guys. And then you have the second one. The second one we're also talking about, and that's happened during the pandemic time. Those used to bet on horse racing racing games nba games that when that stopped they didn't have anything to bet on then they really was looking for things to bet on and it was like maybe some division two in peru or division two in belarus to bet on but then was esport and there was still traditional sports running on the button on the

virtual way you have the formula one you have the nascar you have the nba 2k league you have the fifa you have the madden and people were moving into that and start betting on those things because they understand the game because if you if you if you fifa and madden you will understand because it's tradition but if you look at if you never play League of Legends or Dota, you don't understand what's happening. What are you going to bet on? You can bet on who's going to win the game. That team looks nice.

That odds look nice. That's all. You don't have that insight what's happening in games, that part. That's where we see there's two things. And the same goes for the people that are betting on legal legends or dota they won't bet on traditional sports because that's too casual for them they don't care about that stuff so that they have those that's those are the two things we see there what's the highest what's the high the number one game that's bet on in the u.s counter-strike is the number one

yeah yeah counter-strike is by far the is by far the biggest one of those three i would say counter-strike uh league and dota are the two biggest ones and then how far behind are the traditional sports of you know nba 2k or uh you know Madden or something like that is it like a distant 10th and 12th or is it like are they right there behind them no it's a distant there's a big distance there even if even if it was a pick those those grow really those those games grow during the pandemic but it's not closest to CSGO because that's that's the biggest by far people know that and they understand the game also so i think that's that is the biggest one yeah so there's there is i would say there's a lot of a lot of ground for those to cover to actually to be at the same level there i'm going to ask a a question that i wish i knew the answer to, but just assume the answer is yes.

Is it a hundred percent legal in the U S to, to gamble online on e-sports? No, no, it's not. You need to be, I mean, if you're going to gamble on e-sports, the gambling license you need,

it's 52 States. There's 52 licenses do that. So if there's no, there's not, not do that. Not every state has a license. It will actually open up for betting in every country. We are looking to get the New Yorker license. Hopefully, we get that soon.

That's coming there. But then it's only for people that actually, within New York, can bet and use our things. If people are logging on with a VPN to service in whatever other country, that's possible to do that. But as I said, it's not legal in that way, I would say.

So right now, it's not legal for anyone in the U.S. to gamble on esports? I don't think. There's not any U.S. entities that are offering esports bets, I would say, in the U.S. market. If you're based out of California or if you're based in Denver, I would say you can't bet on a company as you have with the casinos that offer things to do that. So that's not it. But you can bet on it. I guess it's not illegal if you go outside and use a foreign betting service, but there's no American ones that are offering esports betting. Okay, that's what I was asking, though.

If I go to a site like Arrivalry or some of these other players that are going up, if I visit them from the US and I place bets there, I mean, I guess I'm – I think a lot of these rules are being written as we speak, aren't they? Yeah, I mean, yeah, they are. I think it's – that's all – all companies can see that betting is pretty lucrative for them. And I think it is – it needs to be regulations and those kind of regulations and rules in place to make sure that testing works and there's no shady business, whatever. So I think that's one of the things we're really working for, to make sure that we are on the right side and we don't have any gray market,

those kind of things. We want to actually have the license in New York City to be able to offer tests in New York City for the people living there. And then we're looking, of course, at other states to do that uh so we want to be that and i think that's also part where we have that when we're listing on a nasdaq we want to be the most transparent betting company in the u.s on that part of course we we need to be there because we have the sec watching over us what we're doing and checking our books and all that thing but also with the multiple license they also have the they can also check our books 24 7 so we can't do any gray market things they will and but we just want to make sure that we are doing the right thing

there i don't think people have uh completely gotten their heads around the scale of all of these things. You know, like I, even myself, you know, I have four boys under the age of 10, they all love video games. Um, they play, uh, at some point in this interview, I'm going to ask, uh, you know, can they actually make a career out of this? So hold your answer for later. Uh, can they actually, can they make their parents rich doing this? No, I'm kidding. But so hold your hands on that. But I don't think from the events to the teams, you know, like

you know what you know, and you're in the circles that you are, but as this has grown, seeing the followings that the players have, that these teams have, the whole ecosystem of this is hard to even get. As someone in the business of these kind of things, like myself, it's hard to get your head around just how big it is. It is huge, as I said. It's a several billion dollar industry. I'm not sure how many billion dollars it is, but it's huge and all that. There's teams that

are trying to make money participating in leagues and tournaments to have the earnings. Of course, there's the players. There are the superstars that are making some huge money on doing that. Then, of course, the tournament organizations that are trying

to sell in the sponsorships and trying to get the exposure that they also have some things that where they make money so and then you have of course don't forget the influencers the guys they also it's part of that ecosystem also providing that are some of the people are former pro players and some of the pro players also need to do a streaming or trying to be influencers so there's a lot of ways in this to make money and it is as i said it's a huge business for everyone to be there but of course there are still some things where i think the business needs to grow and i think it can learn a lot from the traditional sports i mean there's still some gaps there for how do you go from your your sons going to them again how do they go from from bed from there being at their bedroom to the big stages what's the what's the steps what are the

leagues they're going to play and that's not that that route is not really set there but if but if you play basketball or you play football it's like you start the minor juniors all those steps that's not in esports that's where we That's where we need to build that within esports so people can find a different way to be better and find a way to compete in. And that's why we need more leagues. We need not just for... A lot of the esports tournaments are for the tier one teams,

the biggest teams. But they... Maybe that's 25 teams in counter-strike but there's so many others how can we make them successful how can they grow how can we get more people playing counter-strike and make a living out of that if you look at traditional sports where you have your hockey nhl aahl all those things differently again if that doesn't work you will fly over to Europe and then you have several leagues never come to the play-in.

But that's not the esport. We haven't built that part yet. And I think that's what we need to really do. That's what esports need to do. Take some of these, the best things from other traditional sports and make sure that we move that into the esports so you have all these different leagues and different levels to play in.

Because everybody can't go from the bedroom to the big stage if it's in Cologne or if it's in Shanghai or whatever, that's a huge step, what are the middle ones and how can you find the career or route there Yep, I think you nailed it because I've wondered that myself

like my kids are playing or doing whatever and I'm like, it does just seem like again from someone that's not in every single day, this leap from average casual, you're either the average casual player or you're the superstar at the events. You know, it just doesn't seem like there's a whole lot of middle ground, but, um, but it's interesting, you know, transitioning a bit to like the marketing side of things

and the sponsorship and all of that. I mean, big brands have gotten, you know, into this space, obviously on the, in the U S side, especially, I mean, I know it's worldwide, but, you know, I think you're seeing more of it from the U S, um, see Nike getting into the space, seeing, you know, a lot of those brands. I mean, what's your perspective, um, you know, on the, the, the sponsorship partnership side with brands and, you know, as a second part, maybe to that, how I, I struggle a little bit with knowing and seeing the growth of this and

wondering how the small to medium brands get involved you know the money's gotten so huge i see how nike and adidas and you know insert you know monster energy or whoever that makes you know sense that has gotten involved in this um but i i don't know what the baby step is for smaller to medium brands maybe it's hosting tournaments i don't know what the baby step is for small or medium brands. Maybe it's hosting tournaments. I don't know. But, you know, two-part question there. I mean, for the big brands, it's a way to talk to, as I say, get involved and talk to the community, be a part of that community. Because how are you going to reach, if you're 18 to 20, 18 to 30? I mean, usually traditionally it was, if you're marketing, I did that a lot of times.

If I was marketing new games, if it's a new Sonic game or if it's a new, as I said, part of that was Street Fighter, go for that. You bought banner ads, you bought ads in magazines and if you want to be really crazy and cool with the campaign,

you bought TV ads. But none of that, if you're 18 to 35 you don't watch tv anymore and maybe i think we when i was a dream act we had a we're looking at the numbers and people spend like six minutes per day watching tradition tv but they spend but they spend 74 or 75 minutes on on watching youtube or twitch instead so where are you going to put your money that's where you're going to put your money? That's where you're going to put it in. That's how you get engaged.

And esport is one of the things where you can actually get that engagement. And it's also something that these brands know. Nike knows what it is to sponsor a team or a player because they've done that in basketball, they've done that in football or wherever. So that's something they know. And I think that's the big thing for them to get involved, meet that new target group because they can't use the traditional way because those are dead.

There's nobody watching that. And also, if you do banner ads, some people, they have ad blockers. You're missing that out too. So this is a great way to do that. But, of course, it comes down to a little bit of intensity what are you doing not just coming in and plus your logos everywhere because that's not work you actually need to do something as a you need to do something for the community how can you be an enabler for something doing that that's one of the key things for for brands to get into esport even small or big ones i think that's that's the thing to do there for them so as i said there's

a couple of great example you mentioned nike i will i also think what esl uh did together with mercedes how they actually i would say gave them the hands hey guys follow us we will show you way into esport how to work that and where they start and work in smaller ways creating some activations for them like what mercedes know put that in providing the players with the ride in mercedes and they have like their favorite spotify playlist playing when they get into the car those kind of things they were they had they made commercials with the with the teams those kind of things i know they also they have a mer Mercedes on stage. The classical thing is that actually the company knows what it is and they understand it.

So you don't have to go and talk about how does a tournament work, how does the bracketing work, what's its sport. I mean, it doesn't matter. And then ESL together with Mercedes developed that part. The same they did with DHL. I think that's another one. They actually did really good on that partnership there and also made them create a lot of involvement.

DHL or Mercedes is a part of the whole activation of the events there. Those are, I think, two good examples with the team over at ESL, with those two mega brands that are not traditionally anything into esports. I mean, usually, and also the shoes again where they actually can, they feel comfortable really

because usually it's all putting, let's go counter-strike. It's the biggest, it's one of the biggest ones and it's easy to understand, but then you have all the violence aspects coming in there.

How do you as a Mercedes go and tell to your people that, yeah, I'm going to sponsor a game but somebody gets shot in the head it's terrorists and counter terrorists and all those like france go no that's i'm that's not a discussion we can't take that we don't know how to to answer to the community or to the people asking those questions even if it if the players doesn't see that there's a shooting somebody had it's a team game's team tactics, everything like those kind of things.

It's the same. I mean, it's not just running around. They're doing everything with a purpose. They know what they're doing. They're putting things over there. The smoke is going over there because it's going to block them or those kind of things. It is a really tactical game there.

It's the same as soccer. You know, the ball needs to go in the goal, but then there's all these different tactics all these different kind of plays you need to do that's the same in this case for for counter-strike but it's easy to understand there so and you're looking for medium smaller i mean smaller brands that's still cheap to get into esports not compared to what it was a cost to sponsor a nba team or whatever what is the cost to buy an end whatever it's still cheap but of course the prices have gone up over the couple of years and then it's but i think there's still room for the prices to to really grow there because it's the value get out of that the viewership the engagement

you get from the fans because if you do it, the love you're going to get from the fans and the community is huge on that because they really appreciate the company coming in and doing something for them, making sure that they can actually see that esports or gaming is something serious for them, not just people that come in and are like, oh, you just play games. You don't have anything to do. You just go out and do something else.

It's actually for them competing. It's something they want to do there. It's something they want to look at't have anything to do. You just go out and do something else. It's actually for them competing. It's something they want to do there. There's something they want to look at in their career to do that. But I think for those guys, I think it's a smaller step. Not necessarily running tournaments, but you can sponsor tournaments. You can sponsor players. You can look at your local teams. How can we get them out there, run, give them a baseline to grow

and hire the players, trainers, the team to be better? Those kind of things. And, of course, there's traditional sponsorship that helps, but also you can do a lot of activations around the sponsorship, not just having that logo plastered away. How can you work with the tournament organizations to get the best thing? What activations can you do? What things can you provide? I think it's always going tournament organizations to get the best thing. What activations can you do? What things can you provide?

I think it's always going to talk to people there that you want to sponsor, activate. What are you looking for? How can we help you? That's a good question to start with. And then they're going to tell you how you can do that. And then you can tell them that these are the goals I want to meet. What are the KPIs I have? These are the things we need to hit. And that's a good starting point for talking about it talk

about maybe a few more of like your day what's your day-to-day looking like what's your day-to-day activity you know as the head of esports and on the gambling side you know what are some of the the you know maybe kpis for you or where you're you're trying to take things um with the entertainment group yeah i mean i've only been here for four weeks it's uh one of the things you haven't all figured out yet come on i should i should have one of the things we are of course one of the things i'm i'm we're building out the plan i mean ygd our our platform for esports betting is new nobody knows that so it's it we need to build a brand awareness how can we do that how can we be sure get people to know our brand name and of course one of the things that i know is working with is sponsorship so we're looking to sponsor we're looking to do some sponsorship leagues, tournaments. We're looking to do teams.

That's one of the things, of course. We're looking at what is the best teams to sponsor, what are the games we want to get into that. That's something we are investigating. We are talking to teams, tournament organizations, and looking at what are our best options to get our brand name out there. The second one is, of course, conversions. Everybody, we need people to start betting on the games.

We need to do that. So that's also how can we build a brand and then move this to conversions and to people playing on our platform. So those are the things. And, of course, that's the YDD. But also then we are looking at how can we, esports entertainment groups, it's not just betting is one vertical that we have. We also look at other verticals within esports because esports is so,

there's a huge umbrella, there's different parts there. So we are looking at what are the other verticals we're going to enter into within esports. That's also something we've been looking at. to enter into within esports. That's also something we've been looking at. Is it hard to fight fraud in esports? Fraud, of course. I mean, it's almost regulated now.

I mean, the bigger sports are so regulated, and if some NBA player was tanking, you'd know it. But I would think in esports, at at least in the early it's not the early stages it's been around a long time but it's you know in the early stages of the gambling portion um that would be a concern i mean of course i mean i would say within esport people has been cheating it is regularly if you look in every new game there's cheats happening it is wall hacks where different things that happen so that of course that that creates a lot of i mean for me providing odds on on games where we don't know is we need there's an do we know there's an anti-cheat in there so

people can't cheat on those kind of things so we need to be sure that that every those kind of things are placed and then we also have all the people that are betting, that are exploiting if we have missed anything in our offer terms that we're doing. Of course, that happens too. So you need to be cautious in what things you're doing and providing to the market. And I mean, we have been running some campaigns

that people have tried to exploit, and we have to say no. We have to block those or say no to those guys because they are not not using it as in the terms that we wanted it to be there and then we of course we say no and then we have to cancel some kind of the campaigns there but it's different as I said where we run campaigns do things and then you have the esport things also where people can you have that in traditional sports where people can take a dive or they can forfeit or lose a game purpose

just because they bet on something but I think esport has taken a lot of precautions against cheating and those kind of things and those are the two things we're also, of course, looking at. How can we take care of those things? As I said, but then it's also building the esports entertainment brand

in different verticals. We don't want to just be a betting brand. We want to be more about esports entertainment in part. It could be production tournaments. It could be tournament platforms. There's a lot of things we're looking at that we want to dive in to do that. In the U.S.,

I know worldwide, Counter-Strike, League of Legends, and all that. I actually have one of my good friends that I've worked with for a long time. We actually did a radio show together back in the day. His name is Scott Cole. He's the voice of nba 2k he's on esp he's on espn2 regularly now they on tuesday nights they do the league games and so my perspective has been grounded a lot in the sports you know

i played sports growing up in the sports game played madden and all of those games and but is but as teams go and as um the popularity of things is it still is slanted towards those counter-strike league of legends even in the u.s as far as the players and teams and all that stuff i mean usually the teams if you look at the dignitas or you look at cloud nine or you look at the other us team they usually have they have several they play in several games so they usually have if you look at dignitas for example they have a counter-strike team they have a league of legends team they have a rocket league team So they're trying to be in a lot of games there and trying to be competitive in that. So it's not just that you're a Lignite as a Counter-Strike team. They actually have more teams where they're playing in.

So that's where they can actually gain more fans than the Rangers, because that's just hockey. There's no New York Rangers basketball team. That's the Knicks, whatever. hockey there's no New York Rangers basketball team as the Knicks whatever so I think that's where they can gain

a lot of more fans a lot of more engagement than just having because if you don't

care about soccer sorry hockey you don't care about the Rangers but if you

don't care about the Counter-Strike but I care about League of Legends I can still be a

Dignitas fan or if I don't care about those two but if I'm a Rocket League fan I still care about Dignitas fan. Or if I don't care about those two, but I'm a Rocket League fan, I still care about Dignitas.

So that's where they actually gain more fans in there. And that's, I think, an interesting mechanics, how you can be active in different games and still be relevant, even if people don't like that type of game. Now, that Rocket League, I can get into. Now, I played that with my kids. I don't know what it is. It's the weirdest thing when I saw them playing it you know a couple years ago i was like the strangest thing you know

using cars and everything else to push the balls and the thing and things blowing up i was like this is the strangest mismatch of of of things but it got it's fun it's it's simple it's simple i mean it's it is it's it's a simple game the ball needs to go on the and you have a call and you have a car to drive that you can do some crazy shit with that car yeah i mean i love that game and it's i think that's a perfect game where it actually can be super competitive but also pressure yeah something you guys play with your friends in the sofa i don't want to say drinking beer but i'm saying that oh no let's drink some beer yeah i'm drinking a beer when i'm playing you can of course do soft drinks also or any drinks whatever yeah you can do a monster you

can do a beer whatever but it's like hang around playing games and you can do that i think that's that's the beauty of that game that is that simple and it's easy to play on that. Yeah. You know, as we kind of close out here, I think it, one, one topic that's probably important that I know has fueled a lot of the growth, which is when you, and you mentioned it earlier, Twitch, fascinating, you know, again, back to these layers, who would have thought then, and I guess having watched my kids now it doesn't surprise me and and you know enjoying watching other people but that whole voyeurism of of uh

who would have known how popular it would be i guess to watch other people play video games but that has really exploded um you know the growth of it. And I'd love to know just your overall perspective on Twitch and, you know, that layer. I mean, Twitch has a layer. I think that's, I mean, they've been wiping the competition for a while. I mean, Mixer shut down, move over to Facebook. So it's going to be hard to see what Facebook gaming is doing. I mean, Twitch Twitch what do you

call it status is dominant they are like the number one for esporting people going or live live shows I would say because it's not just esport it actually all the influencers like I mean going there uh Tim the Tatman or just Lyric those guys or Dr. Vis Respect they are there and people come to watch those guys play. It's interesting. I think Twitch has a dominant place in the market, and I think they're still going to continue doing that. But there will be other platforms, and

Facebook's going to do that, but it's growing, that part, because that's how the young kids are consuming content today. If you put a TV remote and some six, eight-year-old kids, they're going to start, I can't do that.

I can't scroll. I can't do that. I can't post that. It's commercial. How can I get past that? They don't watch linear TV anymore. It's the way how they consume it. If it's YouTube or if it's Twitch, which are the two biggest ones, I think we'll continue for a while doing that i mean twitch has been has a lot of competitors that

hasn't survived there so we'll see what happens there is um you know i mentioned it earlier i've given you you know roughly 30 to 40 minutes to think about it so can my kids become the next simple or let's see if I can challenge my some of my big gamer names in the space. But can they can they get there? Like and how do they get there? And is it like, you know, what is the chances of your, you know, your child playing? And like, you know, I'll speak to you US, the NFL is like 0.01%, you're going to make it. Is the odds that stacked against that it can become a career

or are these like actual avenues? I mean, they are actual avenues. I can see this. I mean, there's a lot of new businesses growing. I mean, there's like something, I mean, as I said, they were playing Fortnite and look at Guga who is 16, he three million dollars yeah thank you i mean i guess he spent a lot of

time playing games so they need i mean it's all about dedication and commitment how much can they play and i think it comes to the parents like oh you can't pay eight hours you need to go out yeah the thing is they have all friends online they don't when they go out nobody's out there so like who they're going to hang with all parents of doing that but the thing is you you you never say if the kids go out and hang in the park right i was like good you're out but thing is if they play eight hours video game it's going to be a lot of noise about that but i think that's the things changing if you i mean they have avenues to do that i think there's a lot of things they can do that way play more video games be competitive train about that and there's actually something i heard about in the u.s where it's like people are paying paying somebody to come home fan to be a tutor

to play how to play fortnite in the best way to do that so that's something and i heard they were paying like 400 bucks an hour to get the people in. I'm like, okay. I also made some, I'm in esports, but I made a wrong career move. I should be a competitor instead. So it is, but I think you need to practice. It's all those hours. Look at the game and look at all the players that are spending eight to ten hours per day playing games, playing that game. And the thing is, you need to focus on one game you can't be fortnight and can't be counter

strike and illegal that it has to be one game and you have to like that game they can but it's a it's a small chance to be as good and it's coming into tournaments and spend playing for that for me was it three million at the archer Stadium last year. Crazy event. Any perspective on Valorant? You've heard of that? That game? Is it sort of following the Fortnite model? That's such an interesting

someone that's making a lot of money with thinking through the economies of these things. Let's charge $80 a game. No, let's just give them all away and sell dances and content and everything else and make even more money that that whole that whole free free to play uh sort of uh model it's that crazy i mean it is that free to pay model is that it has been the most successful because if you if you pay 69 dollars for a game you're not paying you're

not paying anymore because you think you're only to pay and you don't you're not supposed to pay anymore but the thing is you get a game for free and then you're buying as i said the skins the dances the t-shirts and down now you're spending actually a thousand dollars or two thousand dollars for that because it's like yeah and it's all those micro transactions the only five bucks here is five bucks there five bucks it's like 20 bucks per day and then it's all those micro transactions. It's only five bucks here. It's five bucks there, five bucks. It's like 20 bucks per day. And then it's for a whole year you're in there. So I think it's, for them, it's a smart move and it doesn't cost anything to create this

digital t-shirt or skin or dance. I mean, it's small cost for doing that, but it's, as I said, people love that. And then you create some awareness around it and they make some part of that limited and all that so it's then you get the prices up look at csgo and all the skins for the weapons where some is worth value at 25 cents and somebody's value at 25 000 dollars yeah but it's the same digital skin what's the difference there but it's like it's somebody it's only five out there it's rare and it's cool and all that so i think that's where they actually that's the money that's the

money maker for them looking at valorant i think that's it's going to it's going to grow i think i haven't really um and that's where maybe i need to invest a little bit more how they're going to do that are they building the same way as they did with legal legends having their own series building that up, or are they actually going to use third-party tournament organizations to run that as a CS goal? Maybe they have decided, maybe they haven't. I haven't seen that, but I think it's interesting.

I would say that Valorant campaign has been one of the best things done for launching a new game. Of course, it's Riot, one of the biggest things done for launching a new game. Of course, it's Dryad, one of the biggest players in the industry, and they have that power to do that. But as I said, people were going crazy about getting those beta codes, hanging, watching people play that game. I mean, looking at the numbers they racked up for their first week there to get in there, they were crushing Twitch numbers.

So it was crazy but i think there's that was a really good campaign a smart move not have to spend that much i mean of course they got to spend some money on influence playing games that's the right guys but it's been worth a lot of for them so great launch campaign for valorant and yeah i'm looking forward to see i'm looking forward to see what they can do within esports. I know there's a lot of teams that are starting to pick up, building their own teams to be there. So it's coming there. It's going to be interesting to see how it's going to compete with CSGO.

Because I think that's what the NIR is competitive for now. So we'll see. Where's it all going? I mean, you know, it's like in some ways it's, it's, like I said, I've known about it for a long time. I have friends in the business, but in some ways it still feels so nascent, you know, as a industry. You know, what's the crystal ball say? Isn't that the good thing with this industry? You know, it goes so fast and you don't know where what's the crystal ball say? Isn't that the good thing with this industry? You know,

it goes so fast and you don't know where it's going. Even if you go, when I started in 2013, 2014, 2013, DreamHack, I mean, PUBG,

Fortnite, that wasn't even a genre there. Nobody was, nobody heard about battle royale games. Came a couple of years later. Now it's huge. Now we actually look at Fortnite. Biggest game. I would say one of the biggest games. It came a couple of years later. Now it's huge. Now we actually look at Fortnite. Biggest game,

I would say one of the biggest games. It runs concerts. It's more a game and a social platform. I think that's the cool thing with this industry. You don't know where it's going. The only thing you know is it's going to be growing. It's going to be bigger and it's going to become new ideas, new things to

test. That's what i like being this because the difference between 2013 and 2020 is huge i mean so many things happening and looking at that people entering into esports and i think riot did their first legal legend find that remax summer i don't know if it was 2009 2029 or something like that it was like a hundred square meter boot and like a year ago they sold out the whole Beijing

Olympic Stadium bird's nest there I mean that's huge that's 40 I don't know 40-50 thousand people come to the event compared to the Dreamhack that have maybe 40-50 people and it's only actually maybe just 10 years between point A

and point B there so it's a so that's what I think it's it's hard to say where we are in crystal ball I think we will see more games

we will see we will see more formats not just PC console we actually see mobile I think that's going to be something that really grows and come in

big here I will leave you with a secret code 0073735963 i think that's right that's coming straight off memory this wasn't planned uh that is the code to go straight to mike tyson and mike tyson's punch out on nintendo i remember it uh since my childhood, kind of like up, up,

down, down, left, right, left, right. B a star for what game Contra. Uh,

if you want to go straight to Mike Tyson's punch out on Mike Tyson, anyone listening, go to that code. You probably could Google it and find it anyway, but, uh, that's straight from the memory from when I was a 10 year old and got my first Nintendo

and literally beat Mike Tyson the first night because I played for like 12 hours straight and that was me. Between that and Legend of Zelda, it was dangerous. Isn't crazy all the memories you have of playing great games and what it gives you

and all the fun and joy you had because I was also mentioned when i was at a company called panvision we when xbox 360 came out we start playing rainbow rainbow six siege i mean we spent so many hours the people just went home you know had been with a family and then eight o'clock to midnight everybody was a family goodbye see you you're sitting there with your first online playing that game and people shouting at you. You can't throw a flashbang in my face.

I'm coming back. You need to do that. We had so much fun. We played like crazy and then Modern Warfare came out. We played even more on that one. It's great. It creates memories and it creates friends and you can hang with them. Now you're having friends with all over the world with two games or using discord services

or playing games it's crazy as i said and the next generation is like you know looking at fortnite looking at that travis scott you're going to concert in the game as i said and then you have the number code there it's not that many years between those things. I mean, maybe, what is it? Maybe 20. Yeah, maybe. Yeah. Well, Magnus, man, really appreciate you coming on the Radcast.

And let's do it again, maybe in another six to 12 months. Love to get you back on, talk more about where things are going with the gambling side. And just really appreciate your perspective. Yeah, let's do that. I think if you talk six to 12 months, I think we're going to be – with the esports entertainment group, it's going to be a lot of progress, a lot of things happening there. I mean, we have a lot of things in the pipeline.

So really looking forward to coming back with you in six to 12 months to talk to you again, and thanks for having me. It was an awesome time. Great. Thanks so much, Magnus.us hey guys this is ryan alford really enjoyed today's episode with magnus talking of esports the growth of gambling the growth of tournaments gaming sponsorships we unpacked a lot today follow along at radical.company or radical underscore results on instagram we'll see you next time to learn more about radical visit radical.company or radical underscore results on Instagram. 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.