eSports Series ft Shaon Berry

 If it's radical, we cover it.
 Here's your host, Ryan Alford.
 Hey guys, it's Ryan Alford with the latest episode of the Radcast.
 The third part in a series on eSports, up and coming,
 the innovations that are happening, all the growth were really excited
 for all the interest that we've been getting around this series
 and really excited to be joined today by Sean Berry.
 What's up, man?
 How are you?
 How are you?
 Doing well, appreciate you coming on.
 Sean is the CEO and owner of Metro Sports in Philadelphia.
 Has a good long lineage in sports and events, sponsorships
 and sports in general.
 I know Sean, but really appreciate you coming on to talk
 a little eSports and what you've been up to.
 Oh, we've glad to do it, man.
 It's a pandemic.
 What else is there to do, right?
 Exactly.
 We've caught people at a good time with our podcast series.
 It's gotten, we'll say, not easier, but a little more attainable
 to get some normally super busy folks on the line.
 So we appreciate your time, Sean.
 And Sean, I'd love to just start, like we talked pre-episode,
 just give people kind of that background on you,
 your sports background of a pit, and just kind of
 we're leading up to where Metro Sports is today.
 Yeah, for sure.
 Yeah, like I shared with you earlier, man.
 I don't come from the eSports world at all.
 I am very much an alien.
 I grew up in the Philadelphia South Jersey area,
 Play football in college, Play the University of Pittsburgh,
 and worked in corporate America about 25 years
 before I launched a sports media company
 called Junior Rank Sports.
 And I launched that in large part with the idea in mind
 that I could create some events to help kids get recruited
 and maybe deliver some good messages around maybe character
 and discipline and academic excellence, things like that.
 And that company grew a lot bigger and a lot faster
 than I was really even prepared for.
 We grew over 400% over the next three years.
 I ended up in a title sponsorship partnership
 with the United States Marine Corps,
 and I created their Semper Fidelis All-American Bowl,
 which ran on ESPN for about six years.
 And so I spent most of my time deeply engaged in football.
 In fact, the first running back that played
 in my All-American games, Todd Gerl.
 And Jared Goff was one of our quarterbacks.
 So it really been heavily entrenched
 on the traditional sports side,
 and saw that very much as a way to help communities
 and help young athletes interested in matriculating.
 And I got a call about two and a half years ago
 from the president of Bay Area Youth Sports,
 who said, hey, Sean, are you still doing esports?
 And I said, I don't know what the hell you're talking about.
 Because I don't even know what esports is.
 And she said, well, we understand at your event,
 you do esports tournaments.
 And what they were referring to is sometimes
 with our camps and combines,
 we'd buy Xboxes and play stations.
 And we'd send it to the hotels with the coaches
 and tell the kids, keep the kids busy.
 I didn't consider that esports event management.
 And so lo and behold, I get a completely undeserved reputation.
 But it caused me to look at esports more seriously
 and do some due diligence.
 And I was just absolutely blown away by the business model
 and the growth opportunities and more importantly,
 the ways that you could really impact
 a larger group of young people effectively.
 So that's how I got into it.
 That's great.
 And so it's funny that having looking back in my career,
 some of the sponsorship activations
 that I worked on, like Verizon Business and the NFL,
 we set up within those, like at the NFL stadiums,
 we'd have a Sony or something playing.
 So thinking back, the roots of esports,
 a lot of people were doing esports and didn't realize it.
 I think.
 I know.
 But so let's talk a little bit about some metro sports,
 like your business now today.
 So what's happening within that environment?
 I know, let's pretend, at least for a moment,
 the pandemic wasn't happening,
 but the core business model there and what you're doing.
 Yeah, so I built metro esports for a couple of different reasons.
 But primarily, I wanted to create some really unique
 content opportunities for brands,
 some that were outside the box a little bit in terms of attracting
 casual gamers or gamers that were a little bit unfamiliar
 with esports in the industry.
 And then the other thing for me was social outcomes.
 Could I impact the community with certification
 or STEM programs that related back to the esports industry
 or create internship opportunities
 with some of our brand partners and things like that?
 And so for me, it was really about how could I make
 or become a conduit to good things for brands
 or good things for people?
 Yeah, I love it.
 So you've got a 7,000-foot facility for tournaments I presume.
 And then, like you mentioned, some of the STEM stuff.
 How does that stuff kind of naturally happen?
 And how long have you had the facility?
 Yeah, so believe it or not, we just done the wiring
 and paint job right before COVID hit.
 So we have yet to announce our grand opening
 until things are safe.
 And we're able to allow kids to kind of work together
 and play together.
 But the facility is interesting.
 I build it almost as a digital version of the YMCA.
 So you can come here and recreate and compete,
 whether it's gaming PC or console.
 For those that are a lot more serious, we have one-on-one coaching.
 Those that are interested in playing tournaments,
 we'll do everything from smash brothers to fighting games,
 to sports games, first-person shooters, et cetera.
 We'll have military Mondays where we just try to honor our veterans
 and create some opportunities for them to engage and compete.
 But the thing that I enjoy the most is, you know,
 we looked at the esports industry and we partnered
 with some of the local colleges and universities
 and said, okay, well, if I want to become a game designer
 or a game developer or a code or a programmer,
 what do I need to know?
 And maybe I can't afford to go to college.
 What does that look like?
 And so a lot of the programs that we'll announce
 over the next three to six months are designed around,
 you know, how to become a member of the esports industry
 if you're not a gamer, or if you're not a streamer,
 but you still love and have a passion for either technology
 or just the space.
 And, you know, we've got some new partnerships with Capcom
 and Warner Brothers and Ubisoft.
 You know, that allows us to be kind of a conduit
 between kind of community and corporate.
 That's interesting.
 And it's funny because on the surface, parents
 and maybe uninformed esports or video game playing, you know,
 as a negative side of it, but a lot of times
 spent by the kids playing just the games themselves,
 in reality, there's so many other legs
 to some of the opportunities because you're still talking
 about highly technically advanced gaming
 and everything that goes into making the games,
 making the consoles, and even just the expertise to play now,
 you know, is like, it's just fascinating,
 the layers that are there.
 Yeah, no, I mean, there's so many opportunities.
 You know, I look at it like this.
 If I had an event and a thousand football players
 were on the field, the reality was,
 of those thousand, maybe I could find five,
 maybe 10 guys that could play in college, right?
 Yeah.
 And of those five or 10, you know,
 who had the grades to play in college?
 And so maybe it gets down to three or four.
 Yeah, I think it's so different in esports.
 If I had a thousand people on an esports tournament,
 I can find 300 coders and 200 programmers
 and 50 streamers and 60 game designers.
 And so the ability to, you know, provide an opportunity
 or a platform, you know, to engage or educate
 or enhance or all those things that just multiplied.
 And that's kind of why I love the space the way I do.
 So, you know, I saw your most recent,
 I presume, one of your more recent partnerships
 like with NFL flag and what they did
 bringing their players together,
 they're in the NFL flag football league of this for youth.
 And I know you can tell me more about it than I can.
 But, you know, talk to me about like what your involvement is
 in that type of tournament.
 And what are you enabling?
 What is, what is Metro esports enablement
 in that kind of online tournament?
 You know, what's your role in that?
 Yeah, so, you know, creator, producer.
 You know, I, for the NFL, just like other organizations,
 said, hey, listen, you know,
 let's recreate to the best of our ability
 the digital sports experience, right?
 So the competition of being on the field and being competitive
 and enjoying that, whether it's, you know, NBA 2K
 or Madden 20 or whatever it is,
 let's recreate that and give young people,
 particularly during this pandemic and opportunity,
 you know, to just compete and receive some of the benefits
 from, you know, what I think is an awesome kind of industry.
 I think, you know, when you look at this pandemic,
 organizations like the NFL or anybody else have a real interest
 in understanding that young people need to socialize,
 right? They need to recreate.
 And, you know, many need to compete.
 And I think it offers all of those aspects.
 And so, you know, we, you know, we, we did the first ever
 NFL online tournament, but, you know, we have,
 we have cities that are clients that engage us in a league play.
 In fact, the mayor of Atlantic City said,
 hey, listen, I want our entire, all the kids in our school district
 to be able to plan a league, you know,
 for the next couple of months, because I don't know what,
 what they can do.
 What's the facilitation of that like?
 I mean, I kind of want to get into like the nuts and bolts
 of that a little bit.
 Like, so when they come to you to do that,
 what you've got players, you've got youth within the city
 that are going to play and they're trying to enable that tournament,
 are you, you know, I know enough about the, you know,
 the games themselves to be dangerous, I guess,
 having played them, I have kids, you know,
 four boys under the age of 10.
 So, other than playing Rocket League or Mad,
 and I'm not too good on every game specific.
 But like, how does, what does, what do you enable specifically
 other than maybe like promotion of the event or something like that?
 Like help walk me through what exactly you're really.
 I mean, it's just that, right?
 So there is a registration process.
 Yeah.
 There is a communication process.
 There is advertising and promotion.
 There's player matching.
 There's, you know, kind of rules and oversight.
 There is, you know, bracketing and playoff management.
 And kind of all those things, you know,
 it is certainly more complicated than a traditional sports,
 you know, kind of engagement.
 But, you know, the being able to do all of those things
 and all of those things well,
 is what creates an awesome experience.
 Do you create, like literally within Madden,
 can you set up these kind of tournaments?
 Like, again, not knowing.
 So I have a partnership with Madden that allows me the licensure,
 you know, to be able to play and,
 and leverage that as an opportunity to compete.
 But as far as the development on the development side,
 I have what shows up on the screen is purely, you know,
 the developer's expertise, not in their mind.
 Yeah, no, but I just didn't know if like, you know,
 if two youth are playing in New Jersey, you know,
 what facilitates the knowing who won and the bracket
 and all of those things, you know?
 Yeah.
 So we have a team that oversees the play
 and scoring and bracketology and rules
 and competition and the whole thing.
 Okay.
 So it keeps up and tracks all of that.
 Is what's been the response to some of the more virtual offerings,
 you know, kind of with COVID and everything going on?
 Has there been an uptick like in everything else?
 It's been huge, man.
 You know, I haven't been able to get much sleep, man,
 because there's so many things that are happening right now,
 where groups are looking for opportunities to, you know,
 educate or engage or entertain or, you know,
 one of those things.
 And yeah, so it's an exciting time from the perspective of,
 you know, what we already knew, which was if you're not,
 you don't have some level of technology involved in what you're doing,
 you're going to stagnate.
 And so we're finding growth.
 Yeah.
 What is partnership for you look like, you know,
 with some of like the games and some of the larger names that I see that,
 you know, you guys are partnering with today.
 Is it kind of you approaching them with ideas or vice versa?
 Well, you know, like I said, I have a long history of really successful activations
 on these sports and the television side, the top profile.
 And so there are a lot of relationships that literally just made the transition
 with me from sports to esports.
 Others have been more challenging from the fact that, you know,
 we're non-indemic and we're building, you know, a brand and a name.
 And so, you know, those can be anywhere from, you know,
 kind of a, kind of big toe in the water.
 Let's see how this goes to others that are saying, you know,
 hey, listen, you know, we believe in your mission, in your vision,
 and we want to get behind it.
 You know, one of my strongest relationships is
 the company perspective is Logitech.
 Their team is so committed to all of the things that I believe in
 and that's really, you know, diversity and inclusion in the space
 of educating and empowering communities, you know,
 exciting and entertaining, you know, like competition and, you know,
 those kinds of things that are very, very natural for me in terms of,
 you know, what I want to do and what I want this brand to be is already
 an extension of, you know, what Logitech does on a daily,
 a daily basis.
 And so, you know, that's one of the partnerships I'm most proud of
 because there's such an alignment of goals and, and agenda.
 Yeah.
 And you brought up a keyword there and I'm definitely want to know
 it's been important.
 I'm read some of the recent articles and that being diversity.
 I mean, is what's the general state of the state,
 if you say, of diversity in esports?
 I mean, improving, but a lot of room to go.
 You know, I think that's, I think that's an understatement.
 Yeah.
 Esports as a whole is non-diverse.
 Yeah.
 I mean, you know, just to be, to keep it, you know, real with you,
 is, you know, when you look at, you know,
 500 million streamers on Twitch and less than 3%
 for African American or Hispanic.
 You know, when you turn on the sport and you see, you know,
 professional teams or you watch, you know, events on ESPN or TNT
 whether it's legal legend or legends or Overwatch.
 It's just not reflective of our community as a whole, right?
 And so, what I'd like to see as esports really more for everybody,
 you know, that, you know, where there is a balanced level of
 representation and participation, not for the sake of doing it,
 but because everybody loves it, you know.
 And so, you know, I think that there's a huge opportunity for,
 for brands that have an interest in reaching a, you know,
 kind of more broad and diverse consumer segment of leveraging esports
 and kind of the digital presence and eyeballs, you know,
 across a nation that are on it and looking for creative ways to do that.
 Yeah, let's be honest.
 Like, every what, 10 to 12-year-old boy or girl of all nationalities
 and backgrounds are playing esports, you know, of some sports.
 Well, it's not only that.
 I mean, I think it's, I think that number is like 97%,
 but most people don't know is the majority of the US video game
 consumer market is black and Latino.
 Yeah.
 So, it's over indexes is like at 40, 54%.
 Yep.
 And then, Pew Research did a study, I guess it was two years ago,
 and found that African American teens play more on average per week
 than any other ethnicity by over and out.
 And so, you know, what you, what that says to me is,
 there's an untapped market out there and there's a great opportunity
 to be more engaging and more inclusive that, you know,
 that does nothing but create better competition and make it more exciting and fun.
 Do you think the problem has been, just like you said,
 numbers speak to themselves, that, you know,
 the African American market is playing these games at a higher rate,
 the Hispanic market is playing a higher rate.
 Do you think it's, they're, they've just lack of opportunity
 to get in the larger tournaments or games and or maybe just not feeling included
 or, you know, what's, what's the gap there?
 No, no, no.
 I don't think it's intentional at all.
 And I think everybody has the same opportunity.
 I think it's exposure.
 Yeah.
 Bright awareness.
 Yeah.
 You know, the other thing is that, you know, different cultures,
 you know, compete or be or are entertained differently.
 Yeah.
 And so, just a, a focus on engaging, you know, one particular group
 or another could, you know, mean, you mean a world of difference
 in terms of attracting, you know, people into a market.
 I, you know, I think that there just, nobody's been very intentional
 about bringing in the other cultures that just haven't participated.
 So I don't think it's about opportunity.
 I think it's just, you know, intention.
 Yeah.
 Is changing the tune just a little bit.
 You know, what's been fascinating for me and kind of digging into this more,
 starting to work and talk to more clients in this space and different things.
 Just the streaming aspect.
 The, the, the, just sheer enormity of, of, of, of content being watched.
 You know, like that's been a fascinating with Twitch and YouTube.
 And you know, Facebook's been off and all those things.
 But just sheer amount of content being watched in this space.
 Any perspective kind of on, you know, where that's at,
 where it's going and just your volume of that.
 Yeah.
 I mean, listen, man, it is amazing to me, you know, the conditioning of how we receive digital data.
 You know, the shorter attention spans.
 You know, kids now all the way up through, you know, kind of Gen Z and Millennial.
 You know, they want clips of entertainment.
 You know, excitement and a bundle on a package.
 And, you know, esports provides that in a way that's so accessible from a mobile phone or, you know,
 and so when I think about streaming and content and, you know, personalities,
 you know, that are making millions of dollars, you know, because they happen to catch an eye.
 I mean, damn, you look at TikTok and you're like, damn, why didn't I think of that?
 And so, you know, esports is no different.
 But I think therein lies also the opportunity.
 The thing that's so exciting about this space is the reach, right?
 And so a streaming audience, whether it's YouTube or Twitch or caffeine or anybody else,
 it's, you know, being able to reach millions in an instant,
 you just have to have some good content and be creative about it.
 And so, not another thing that I think makes this industry so great is that if you can be creative,
 you really have a chance to be successful.
 Yeah, I read one of the top players or not even a top player.
 I literally forget the name.
 It was like a mediocre player or something was making $15,000 an hour for exclusive streaming rights on Twitch.
 You know, like, it's crazy.
 But I mean, I guess it's the same thing as a TV station.
 You know, you get ratings and you have the eyeballs and, you know, it drives...
 The word talent is subjective, man.
 You know, when I was doing some research just to learn about esports.
 I remember talking to one programmer and I said, oh, I guess Ninja's the best, right?
 He said, you can throw a baseball and hit 15 people that can beat Ninja.
 And I said, well, wait a minute. What is it?
 And it was personality.
 It's, you know, it's what engages an audience.
 And so, you know, I think that's so exciting, man, because it levels the playing field in such a crazy way.
 Yeah, almost like professional wrestling of swords, right?
 Yeah, exactly.
 The best athlete isn't always the best highest paid wrestler necessarily, you know?
 Listen, I'm super convinced that the guys that I love the most in WWE weren't the best athletes.
 They were all about personality, for sure.
 Yeah, I don't know if Rick Flair was ever the best athlete on the...
 It might have been in his early years, you know, maybe, but, you know, even when he started making his big bankroll,
 I don't think he was the best athlete, but he knew how to talk and he knew how to play it up.
 Rick Flair was never dunk in the basketball. That's for damn sure.
 No, no, not at all.
 Where do you see, you know, as far as, you know, Metro esports saying, what's...
 Obviously, you're just getting things off the ground as far as the facility and stuff.
 Once things reopen and God willing, that will be sooner than later.
 You know, but what's kind of like the three to five year plan for you?
 Like, where is it all going?
 Yeah, man, I am so excited because, you know, again, it's what I love about this industry.
 For us, it's about creating original content that is attractive and engaging.
 And so some of what you'll see from Metro esports over the next, to be honest with you, over the next three to six months,
 you know, we think is industry changing.
 And there's some pretty powerful brands that think so too.
 So, you know, I would say be on the lookout for content that you've never seen before.
 Yeah, that's cool.
 Is the NFL portion, you know, with what you did with, you know, NFL passing all that?
 Like, is that going to be kind of an ongoing partnership potentially with them?
 Yeah, you know, I think so.
 You know, I think the great thing for it, the NFL is they're the NFL, right?
 So they can do whatever the hell they want, whenever they want.
 I think right now, it's really about for them understanding, well, you know, how much football
 are people playing right now, whether it's at the youth level or the high school level or the college level?
 And then, you know, when they're not playing, how do we want to engage them, you know, esports or anybody else?
 But, you know, my hope is, you know, for us from a partnership perspective, you know, we're looking at NASCAR and MLB
 and others that have an understanding that, you know, there's an opportunity when organized well
 to satisfy, you know, both the on field and the on screen appetites of young people.
 I'm asking this of all of the people that are coming on our series.
 Having, you know, four boys under the age of 10 that all play.
 Is this a true career path?
 I have to tell you, I was speaking, I did a Zoom call with a group in Florida over the weekend.
 So they had about 100 young people on the call.
 And we were talking about just esports as an industry.
 And one of the parents said to me, hey, listen, is this thing real?
 You know, should I be letting my kid play five and six hours a day?
 And my answer to her has become kind of a standard answer for me.
 And that's really more with a story.
 You know, I did an event with Microsoft last year at one of their Pennsylvania locations.
 And they had a young person, a young kid that was coming into their store to play
 because he didn't have the resources at home.
 But he was coming in every day, like it was school was open and he was closing out the shop every night.
 And he was doing this for months on end, you know, to the dismay of his parents until he won,
 I don't know, like $6 million in that quarter of up in New York.
 And so, is it a real career?
 You know, I would say the percentages are higher if you have some type of technical attitude.
 You know, as a parent, I would say to my kid, listen, if you want a game, do it all day.
 But you've got to spend an equal amount of time learning how to code or program or design.
 And so, if you have a passion for the space, you know, let's up the percentages of your success by being more well-rounded.
 Yeah, I love that.
 I'm going to, I'm going to use that exact phrase there.
 Well, Sean, man, I really appreciate your time and coming on today and, you know, looking forward to following everything
 the Metri Sports is doing, your involvement with diversity, your involvement with a lot of these brands.
 So, really appreciate the insights in your time today.
 Hey, thank you guys for the time and for having me.
 Great, man. Hey, guys, this is Ryan Alford.
 Follow along at d.rad.cast on Instagram.
 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 RyanAlford on Instagram.
 Thanks for tuning in.