ES Broadcast

Outfitting the ambitious National PUBG League

Jonathan Lyth Technical Director

Adam Fitch AUTHOR  @byadamfitch

hen OGN jumped ship from South Korea to North America last year, it set upon what appeared to be an impossible challenge: creating an arena that can accommodate a Battle Royale league in an logistically-feasible and aesthetically-pleasing manner. With 16 teams competing - each comprised of four players - it’s a much taller task than arranging a Counter-Strike: Global Offensive facility, for example. W

OGN was announced as the company behind the National PUBG League in October 2018 and it only had a few months to set up its Super Arena ahead of the competition’s impending start date. It’s not easy to source all the equipment needed to create such a setup, especially if it needs to be mobile to make way for other competitions. Add in the need for dedicated presence on production-oriented tasks, and things can get overwhelming.

This is where ES Broadcast stepped in. Vastly experienced in systems integrations outside of esports, the company has done an immaculate job in entering the space in a way that feels authentic and genuinely helpful. Partnering with OGN to help bring the National PUBG League to life, it ventured to Los Angeles with a kit list and did all the heavy lifting to allow OGN to concentrate on the other important areas.

“It was at the time where Battle Royale was really on the rise and as outsiders coming into it, we didn’t realize that - from a technology point of view - we were starting on the extreme,” said Jonathan Lyth, Technical Director of ES Broadcast. “OGN needed a company to come in and do the heavy lifting with systems integration so it could concentrate on production and that’s how it all started.”

ES Broadcast had a pre-existing relationship with OGN, having worked together in a small capacity in the past, but it didn’t realise the challenge it faced with the National PUBG League. There are four columns that each contain four setups, as well as four rows that are tiered to allow the audience to get a

glimpse at every team that’s competing. This setup is regarded as one of the more intricate setups in esports to date and, incredibly, it’s wholly removable.

The company started operating in esports two and a half years ago but it didn’t enter the industry with the mindset of telling everybody how things should be done. Despite having a wealth of experience from traditional broadcasting, it came to listen to companies and their problems and then offer its expertise whenever it was needed. Those behind the company understood from the get-go that esports was founded upon people wearing many hats and doing everything themselves so they couldn’t just come in and dictate how everything should operate.

“We’re trying to be as open as possible and to learn as much as we can about esports to try and bridge the two worlds,” said Lyth. “We’re not saying we’ve got all the answers but we know enough about supplying equipment and integrating systems to help point companies in the right direction at the very least.”

As you’d expect with systems integration, broadcast equipment sales, and equipment hire, a lot of the magic takes place behind closed doors. ES Broadcast is working with other major players in esports, such as ESL UK, but the nature of the job means there’s not a lot public acknowledgement for such work. Perhaps that’s the curse of operating in such a space - if you’ve done a good job then hardly anybody will say a word about it. It’s only when things go wrong that fans decide to acknowledge such important elements of event organisation and production.

Daniel Mitre

New Wave Esports

A conscious and calculated esports investment company

AUTHOR Adam Fitch  @byadamfitch

ew Wave Esports is an esports investment company that’s aiming to do things a little differently. Identifying four pillars of investment, it aims to create a diverse portfolio of companies that inhabit different corners of the industry. N

Ahead of his keynote at ESI London, we chatted with Daniel Mitre, CEO of New Waves Esports to find out about these pillars, the companies it currently invests in, and his thoughts on the current esports investment trends.

The Esports Journal: Can you tell us your background in gaming and how New Wave Esports came to be? Daniel Mitre: I’m a huge gamer, my favourite game will always be Super Mario Bro. You can play competitively by trying to get through levels as fast as you can and not dying. This was my first taste of being passionate about competing in video games but my parents always told me that’d I’d never make money from it.

Fast forward to my early twenties. I started doing that as a QA tester. This gave me a good foundation of how games are developed and how the interaction with developer and publisher is. From there, I graduated up to becoming an Assistant Community Manager where I led communities on big MMO RPG games, sports games, and big multiplayer titles. I’ve worked at EA, Sega, THQ, and Activision Blizzard.

This gave me that foundational understanding of how gamers relate to the games that they are passionate about, the lifestyles that are created from those, and then how to keep them plugged into what we know as a live service now. I took my love for gaming and my network within these publishers with over to New Wave Esports. I’m joined by our President, Trumbull Fisher, who’s a 14 year veteran in financial markets. He co-led a hedge fund that raised more than $3 billion and has now brought his expertise over to our company to raise money in the esports world. We started last November and really started to make moves in January of this year.

ESJ: What role does New Waves Esports play in the esports industry? DM: Our sole purpose is to invest, acquire and develop technologies around esports to push competitive gaming industry forward. We love it and we know that our communities love it. We’re doing this by investing into four different pillars within esports. The first pillar is teams and organisations, we invested into Lazarus - we placed a sizable chunk into them. They took home $3.5 million in the Fortnite World Cup so we’re really proud of that investment.

The second pillar that we invest in is platforms, whether that’s an online tournament portal, betting and gambling, portals for coaching and insight, and so on. Oone of the companies that we placed investment in early on was PlayLine, which was co-founded by UFC Middleweight champion Michael Bisping. PlayLine deals in daily fantasy sports and is bringing over an esports component so you’ll be able to bet on esports.

The third pillar that we invest in is events. We have a significant equity stake in a company called Even Matchup Gaming, which produces some of the biggest tournaments in Canada. It has two major events a year: a national Super Smash Bros. tournament called Get On My Level and a Super Smash Bros. Ultimate event called Let’s Make Moves. It also hosts 79 other events throughout the year and contributes towards esports at grassroots and collegiate levels. Technology is the fourth pillar for New Wave Esports. We have some good platforms coming out next year that are listening to the needs of esports and developing solutions for them. We have such a diversified portfolio because we believe in economic durability, especially since we’re going public on the Canadian Securities Exchange in October.

ESJ: Why did you choose to invest in Lazarus in particular when there are so many organisations out there? DM: Our company was initially set up in Canada and we wanted to quickly exercise some of our working capital into some Canadian companies. We saw that Lazarus’ parent company, Tiidal Gaming, is very proficient; they’re optimized and working as a very green business.

The organisation has a roster of 50 athletes across 10 different countries and 12 titles. This includes female teams for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and League of Legends, they’re pushing for diversity and that’s very much needed in esports.

ESJ: We’re currently seeing a pattern of celebrities, and rappers in particular, coming in and investing in esports. Is this a healthy trend? DM: It’s really interesting. From an investment standpoint, it makes sense. We see that a lot of traditional investors made a ton of money in cannabis but all those multipliers are long gone. They can still make money but it’s just going to take longer. All the analysts and investment firms are saying the next big thing is esports. So from an investment standpoint, you know, if I’m Drake or Will Smith, I’m going to jump on the next big opportunity.

Where they add additional value as a strategic investor is their name. When Drake put millions of dollars into 100 Thieves it made major headlines, this

put the organisation more on the map and that brings a lot of great working capital over. We’re made shot can start doing some awesome things. And same with all these other big time teams that are raising great capital. So as a strategic value add and it’s great money coming in.

ESJ: There’s a lot of discussion around whether esports is currently in a bubble or not, where do you stand on this topic? DM: I wouldn’t say we’re in a bubble, but that there’s a market correction on the horizon. Gaming has been around since the late sixties, early seventies and we know it’s not going anywhere. Since its inception, we’ve always seen that people are interested in seeing other people play video games. So no matter what happens with esports, we will always be entertained by someone playing a video game better than us.

Saying that, I think a lot of these teams are over-evaluated. Some companies are saying “Hey, I’m worth $150 million,” though they may often not be. It may just be storyline where they’re trying to raise capital.

There will be a market correction. Those that are using their capital and building something sustainable will stick around. Those who are pumping major burn rates without a profitability inflection point over the next two or three years may not survive. We, as an industry, need to correct some issues with using our money correctly and building more of an ecosystem for everybody to be successful rather than just trying to monopolize.

ESJ: Do you see franchising as a good investment model or otherwise? DM: That’s a big question. When investors between raise $8-25 million to get a franchise spot, they have to think about when they’re going to see profitability. You’re not going to see in the first year, it’s likely going to take two to three years. Even just with talking with Activision Blizzard, they’re saying the same thing. It takes two or three years to really start building out these franchises, getting all the sponsorship money coming in, getting the audience set, and being able to sell CPM models.

It’s going to come down to executive leadership, knowing how to build good businesses, and understanding the long-term profitability here.

ESJ: How do you identify what’s a solid, promising investment for your company? DM: We look at certain criteria: what’s their path, when are they going to start to dial in the revenue, their tactics, what their team is like, their network, their understanding of the industry, and so on.

You look at some of the traditional elements within a business, as well as exactly how are they contributing to esports and if we see them sticking around for a few years. What I think is most important here is ethics. Are there as passionate about esports as we are and do we share the same vision? There’s a lot of companies out there and we could just be writing cheques left and right, but we want to work with companies that believe in what we believe in.

ESJ: Why did you decide to get involved with ESI London? DM: I’ve always heralded Esports Insider as one of the go-to outlets for esports news and communities.

I’m honoured to be able to stand on-stage at ESI London. I think what you guys have built over the years is incredible and with your help, we’re bringing great eyes to esports. We’re pushing those major headlines, showing mass audiences that esports is really here to stay in. There’s some serious movement going on.

I’m excited to be on stage to show my presence and I’m looking forward to meeting a lot of people that are coming out that you’re attracting.

Oskar Fröberg

Helping to tell the many stories of esports

AUTHOR Adam Fitch

 @byadamfitch

ata is perhaps one of the most untapped sectors of esports. Since video games are entirely digital, a huge amount of raw data is available and the opportunities that presents is far beyond those in other industries. D

One company navigating this space, and doing so successfully, is Stockholm-based Abios. We spoke with Oskar Fröberg, CEO of Abios to dig into the company’s products, the challenges it has faced, and its involvement in ESI London. The Esports Journal: In what capacity are you involved with ESI London? Oskar Fröberg: We’ve been a sponsor of ESI London since it began, even when it was part of Betting on Sports.

This year we decided to return as a sponsor because it’s always worthwhile! I’m also speaking on a panel at ESI London on the data and media rights space.

ESJ: Why do you come back to support the event each year? OF: The main reason is that we’ve had great success in meeting both existing and new potential clients and partners to do business with.

We can meet both sportsbooks and event operators, as well as other suppliers in the industry. It’s a great place to feel the pulse of the industry and to meet with our industry colleagues who are not situated in Stockholm like us.

ESJ: What do you get from these events on a personal level? OF: The networking side of things is

really important. It’s always great to meet the people that I continuously speak with over email and Skype and whatnot, and there’s always a lot of important people from the industry in attendance. It’s nice to meet them in person to improve the relationship and it’s, of course, good for Abios at the same time.

It’s also really interesting to see what other companies and other actors are doing in the industry and to keep tabs on what’s happening each year.

ESJ: Where do you fit into the esports industry and what do you bring to it that no other company does? OF: We’re a data supplier and our core product is our API. We enable the collection and use of data for many types of companies, whether it’s a betting company, an organisation, or a media company - any company that’s looking for data. The second product that we have now that’s built on our API is our widgets. This product mainly helps betting companies to create interesting and engaging live content for matches - both pre-match and live - without large development costs or technical overheads.

We gather and collect data - either from game developers, event organizers, or from official streams - and then make sure it’s as fast and as granular as possible to distribute it in a way that’s easy to use and well-structured.

ESJ: Last year you partnered with Luckbox and you recently announced a deal with Unibet, so you had experience with both esports and sports betting. How would you compare the two? OF: Esports is still far behind regular sports but it’s slowly getting there. We’re not in any huge rush for it to catch up though, we want to be in the industry and grow with the industry as it keeps growing for many, many years to come. While esports betting is getting big now and interest is growing, the betting industry for esports is nowhere near its potential size.

The amount of players in esports is there, the viewership is there, the prize pools are there, and these are all continuously growing. However, we know all of the sub-industries are still have a long way to go; I think this is very positive because it means there’s still huge growth to come for the entire market.

ESJ: Do you think there are any missed opportunities that’s hindering the growth of esports betting or is it just a case of waiting for things to grow naturally? OF: I think it’s both. We need to wait for things to grow naturally and we need to wait for revenue to continue to flow down the stream. The audience needs to mature and have higher disposable income so that people can spend money on their hobbies and interests - one of which is esports. There’s not much to do about that except wait because I don’t think we’ll be able to convert older adults to start betting on esports. In 20 years time, I’m certain that the interest will still be there for esports betting so it’s a waiting game.

From my perspective, the most important thing is that the game developers continue to provide open data sources for companies to collect and build products upon. I would suggest, for the developers that don’t do that, that they should open themselves up. I also think that in general, what would be best for esports is if it can avoid going down the same road that traditional sports has with exclusive rights.

ESJ: How has Abios grown and developed over the past year? OF: We’re just trying to increase revenue and land more and more clients. As of right now, we are roughly growing revenue by 100% per year. Our business model is Data as a Service so that produces recurring revenue; we sign up clients on a monthly, quarterly, or annual basis and do our best to retain them.

ESJ: How have you been working with Unibet to bolster its esports offering? OF: We’re developing lots of new products and exciting things together with them for esports, it’s just a close collaboration where they want to tap into both our data and our knowledge of esports.

As of now, Unibet has implemented our esports widget.The two main parts of the widget are pre-match and live. The pre-match widgets and the live widgets are both made up of several components which our clients can now pick and choose from, they can tailor the widgets to their needs.

The pre-match component, for example, is if it’s between two teams, it’ll state simple data points like who’s playing who, at what time, what stream it’s available on, and so on. It can also include information on how these two teams usually perform against each other, how have they performed recently, what are the best and worst heroes of teams or individual players, et cetera.

When it comes to live widgets, we track lots of relevant live data. If it’s a MOBA, we can include picks & bans, the items that they currently have, gold graphs, and other important bits of data. Whereas for a game such as CounterStrike: Global Offensive, the widget can display what weapons players are carrying, who’s alive, the economy, round by round updates on who won, and other pieces of relevant information.

ESJ: How do you decide which titles that Abios works with? OF: It’s mostly demand driven from our client side. Currently we support around

17 titles and there are three titles we’re looking at adding right now. If we have clients that are willing to pay for the data, we’ll start covering the games with no problem. We have the computer vision technology in order to start collecting and gathering data off of the publicly available streams, and we have the relationships to set things up to access really good data.

ESJ: Which titles do you find the most interesting to operate within? OF: On a personal level, I’m a huge Dota 2 fan and player. For the company, League of Legends. They both have fairly good data availability and reliability. Those games, and Counter-Strike:Global Offensive, have high integrity compared to other titles because there’s very serious organisations and there’s a lot on the line for the players. It’s these three games that clients are really interested in, too.

ESJ: What exactly does your esports API offer to companies? OF: The API is our way of distributing data, that’s our core product. It enables companies to build, esports products and offerings - whether that’s content or bets and odds. They can pretty much do whatever they like with the data.

ESJ: Have you got any other products on the horizon that in development? OF: We’ll be releasing another product around the same time as ESI London, we’ll be rolling out probabilities. It’s a knowledge feed, but it’s not traded and it’s not risk managed. Since we have very good data and five years of very detailed historical data, we’re able to make some really great predictions on matches and events. We’re releasing a feed of odds or probabilities, whichever way you wish to describe it. The big three games will be supported at the beginning. Initially it will just be pre-match and hopefully we’ll expand into live probabilities going forward.

ESJ: What’s been the biggest challenge for Abios since it was started? OF: The biggest challenge for the company I would say is durability. We’re always trying to avoid being shortsighted and burning out too quickly. Often times, people who venture into new industries or new businesses are in too much of a rush, and while we want to make everything happen quickly, esports takes time to grow and build.

It takes time for revenues to flow from the top tier players and game developers down to all the subsets of

businesses and organisations in the industry. That affects us as we have some clients that are financially stable but we also have a lot of clients that are esports startups that are faced with the challenge of becoming sustainable. And of course, even if we think that we have a great business and a good business model, uh, we’re also, you know, dependent on the success of our clients.