The Problems that come with Creator/Player-Led Esports Organizations
In recent years, the world of Esports has grown beyond imagination. The Prizepool of tournaments has now overtaken multiple traditional sports. While still relatively new compared to traditional sports, Electronic sports have shown tremendous growth. The great thing about the industry is that it is still in its early stage and will continue to grow. The fan following and the awareness of Gaming are growing every day. As a society moving towards a privileged and comfortable lifestyle, we are finding more ways to entertain ourselves.
A good metric for the increased number of gamers is the number of concurrent Steam users. This number has grown since 2013 and reached 32.2 Million in January 2023. As Gaming becomes mainstream, the Esports Industry will see growth.
The Growth of Esports Organizations
With the industry's growth, one integral part of the industry grew too. Esports Organisations are an integral part of the industry. the sheer growth in their numbers is phenomenal. Compared to traditional Sports, Esports rely on Tournament Organisers and Esports Organisations.
The Esports organizations sign players and endorse them to participate in the tournament sponsored by TOs. A lot of initial esports organizations started as game clubs and player gatherings. But as the industry grew, so did the business side of Organizations.
Currently, a top Esports organization is nothing short of a successful business. The Esports team is the marketing tool, and their wins are advertisement. Running the organization is not cheap anymore, and most esports orgs rely on Investments and merch sales to stay afloat. The tournament prize pools are not enough for the Esports orgs to run. That is why Owners of Traditional Sports teams are the owners of some of the newest Esports organizations.
Creator-led-Organizations and recent issues:
Said that there are still multiple organizations that are started by Creators and still led by creators. A few examples of these are Cloud9, TSM, 100 Thieves, G2 Esports, and Faze Clan. But recently, these organizations have been problematic. Faze Clan became the first esports organization to go public and was a big deal for many Esports fans worldwide. The current stock price has fallen below a dollar.
Faze Clan, and the ex-CEO Richar "Banks" Bengston were involved in a Crypto pump and dump scheme that heavily affected the company's public image. Banks also came under fire after getting involved with illegal gambling activities. Faze has since partnered with SPAC and went public. But the stock fell almost immediately after going public.
TSM Founder and CEO Andy "Reginald" Dinh came under fire when former ex-TSM player Doublelift accused the player-turned-owner/CEO of misconduct and verbal abuse of the players. After the investigation, Riot fined Reginald, and TSM put Reginald under probation and sensitivity training.
100 Thieves and another creator-turned-CEO, Mathew "Nadeshot" Haag, was recently criticized after laying off 30 employees on January 11 and multiple more a while before. In a report posted by Digiday, 100 Thieves has a fear culture and has been shifting away from Youtube, Creator-centered, to a more traditional organization centered around Logo and branding.
A few ex-employees of the organization suggest Nadeshot prioritized his passion projects over the company's welfare and longevity. This resulted in 100 Thieves losing a lot of brand sponsorship last year. 100 thieves are famous for content creation, and the org recently let go of the entire content creation department. The org is centered around creating quality content and merchandise, but letting go of the content creation department is a case of mismanagement.
Problems with the Creator-led-orgs
Multiple of these instances suggest the lack of judgment from the people responsible. In the case of Reginald, despite not being a Coach or member of the team, he repeatedly involved himself with the League team and misused his power. The inability to separate themselves from sports and Gaming and make decisions solely from a business perspective is costing the Creator-turned-CEOs a lot.
The lack of understanding and sense of responsibility that comes with the title of CEO has been apparent on multiple occasions by the CEOs. One such case was G2 Esports losing their Valorant Partnership slot after CEO Carlos "Ocelote" Rodriguez doubled down on his support for Andrew Tate. As a CEO, one is responsible for the whole organization. The actions and words of a CEO represent the Org's principles and Image. The words and actions are subjects of public scrutiny and the CEO must ensure they maintain professionalism.
A great example of Creator-led esports org is Cloud9. And with multiple new faces of the internet like MoistCritkal, Ludwig, and Disguised Toast joining the Esports Organization founding team, we can only hope for better industry representatives as we advance.
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