Esports Series ft. Magnus Leppäniemi

 Welcome to the Radical Marketing Podcast.
 Here is your host, Ryan Alford.
 Hey guys, this is 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 forthcoming
 segment that is eSports video gaming
 as an avid Nintendo player growing up.
 You know, it's 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 Lepa Nehemi.
 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.
 I have to get the podcast.
 Great.
 Magnus, I want to get into it.
 As I was setting up a little bit for the episode,
 a lot of layers to eSports
 really want to rack into your knowledge base.
 But I think we'll start with your background
 and 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 hear a little bit about your background.
 Yeah.
 My background has been in sales and marketing for a long time.
 I actually started working with the selling Nintendo video games
 already back in the 1994 for the Nintendo entertainment system there.
 That's where I started.
 But that wasn't the eSports at that time.
 I mean, I didn't know about eSports at a case.
 But actually, a little bit later on, jump, make a jump,
 as I said, to 28, 29 there,
 when I was working at the Nordic distribution company called PanVision,
 where Capcom was, where Capcom was one of our clients that we worked with,
 and they released Street Fighter IV.
 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, you should do eSports.
 It's huge fighting games, a huge eye, eSports gaming.
 What is that?
 I heard about DreamHack.
 And in fact, it's usually 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.
 It was Thomas Patrick.
 And they're still at DreamHack.
 They've been there for a long time.
 Really good meeting those guys to be there.
 So that's my entry.
 And then I started at DreamHack in 2013.
 I came from actually from Palmvation over down to DreamHack.
 And that was, that was an interesting move.
 I met Matthew Stefan, who hired me, said, you never gonna,
 then you're never gonna have a day that looks the same
 when you started DreamHack.
 And it has been a crazy ride from when I'm started.
 I mean, when I started DreamHack, we were 13 people.
 I was number 14 there.
 We did, I think we, DreamHack did four, maybe six events
 that year.
 And then I actually took off.
 I mean, we entered into the US markets in 2016.
 We did one event in Austin, 2017, three events.
 We added in Germany, France, Spain.
 It was a crazy ride.
 That's my whole thing there.
 And as I said, I've been working with partnerships for DreamHack
 since that part.
 Mainly focusing on the US side for DreamHack already.
 2015 where I spearheaded DreamHack's partnership
 saves for the US events coming in 2016.
 What's, you know, you said, you said a keyword there
 that I'm gonna call out because of how many quarters I spent
 at the arcade on Street Fighter.
 Like, I think I could have started seven businesses
 with the amount of quarters I put in the machine.
 One of the greatest kind of, you know, I don't know,
 I'm not a platform, but just game enigmas of all time
 with Street Fighter.
 I just remember.
 Like, so you worked on Street Fighter four?
 Yeah, well, I was on Street Fighter four, 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 is out there.
 It's not that big as it was at that part of that.
 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 I am, I'm just hammering the bottom.
 So if you actually calculate the moves, you know, how to do that.
 And you know, the best people are even calculating the end of 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 have one special move that you always use.
 Oh, yeah.
 Yeah.
 Well, I had at least three.
 I would pull that, that spinning kick.
 Oh, like right in the perfect time and then no one had a chance,
 except for some of the big players.
 So what's, I mean, so where's, what are the big games, you know, now,
 like, you know, my kids are playing Fortnite.
 I know a lot of the first person, third person arena game shooters,
 um, get into some of, you know, those, but like League of Legends counterstrike,
 I know, is where's most of the, of the activity?
 I know it's universal call C sports, but is there segments that are going
 faster than others?
 I mean, as I said, I mean, saying esports, this like saying sports,
 so many different games in there.
 And usually it is the traditional ones that are the biggest one,
 League of Legends, Dota, Counter Strike, of course, the three biggest ones.
 That's, that's the, that has the most viewerships.
 That has the most teams.
 It has a huge ecosystem for both tournament organizations or teams to survive
 and be in.
 And then you have the app and comments like, as I said, Fortnite is coming
 there.
 Uh, Overwatch League, Call of Duty League.
 Those are also coming in there, as I said.
 And the, sorry, Rocket League was a great game,
 but they're actually taking building that ecosystem and rainbow sift,
 six of course.
 As I said, those, there are games that has been for a long time, as
 in the first three, I mentioned, the other ones are coming there.
 So I think it's, it's great to see that there's more games coming in to the,
 to the, so to say, more ecosystem.
 So people, they were both tournaments, tournament organizations can survive,
 but also teams can be there.
 So that's great.
 So, but as I said, I would say an upcoming segment that we're going to watch
 and see more, 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,
 in, 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, the PUBG mobile or Call of Duty is
 there.
 Perfect.
 Those really going to make sure that I think eSport 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 entertainment has two entities right now.
 We bought our guy who is an UK traditional sports and casino besting.
 And then it's YGD who is the eSport 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 eSport and gaming.
 So that's something really building out there.
 We want to be the best, so be the best.
 Or they go to sites when you want to bet the eSports and gaming.
 So if, if you want to bet on the, if you are a gamer, you're probably going to
 look at the, because it's a counter strike or legal legends or
 Dota games, you don't, you don't look at traditional sports.
 That's one of the categories we really want to be.
 And those are actually, they think about the games.
 They are very knowledgeable about, not about 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 responsibility shifts?
 Is that to activations?
 How do we build that community?
 And that's one of the things we also want to see that we are a,
 we're building a eSport community.
 We are a part of the eSport community in there.
 What's the profile of the game?
 I'm sorry to interrupt.
 What's the profile of the average, like gambler of eSports?
 Is it a gamer themselves?
 I mean, it's two categories.
 One of the, one of the traditional ones is that the people that they
 come to stock.
 Those are about 21, 24.
 And they want to bet on the games, you know,
 and the teams to vote for.
 Really, you have those guys.
 And then you have the second one.
 The second one, we also talk about it.
 And that's happened during the pandemic time,
 those that 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 there 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,
 but on the virtual way.
 You have the formal Obama.
 You have the NASCAR.
 You have the NBA 2K league.
 You have the FIFA.
 You have the modern.
 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 modern,
 you will understand because it's tradition.
 But if you look at, if you never play legal ledger or count,
 legal ledgers or doda, you don't understand what's happening.
 Yeah.
 What are you going to bet on?
 You can bet and was going to win the game.
 That team looked nice.
 That also looked nice.
 But that's all.
 You don't have that insight.
 What's happening in games.
 That part.
 That's where we see those two things.
 People that, but and the same goes for the people are betting on legal ledgians
 or doda.
 They won't bet on traditional sports because that's too casual for them.
 They don't care about that stuff.
 So that's, they have those, that's the, those are the two things we see there.
 What's the highest?
 What's the, the number one game that's bet on in the US?
 Counter strike.
 It's not the number one.
 Yeah.
 Yeah.
 Counter strike is by far the, it's by far the biggest one with those three.
 I would say counter strike.
 You can go to the two biggest ones.
 How far behind are the traditional sports of, you know, NBA 2K or,
 you know, Madden or something like that.
 It's like a distant 10th and 12th.
 Or is it like, are they right there behind them?
 No, it's a distance.
 There's a big distance there.
 Even if it, it was a big, those, those, those grow really, those, those games grow during the pandemic.
 But it's not the closest to CS go 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.
 There's, there is, I would say there's a lot of, a lot of background for those to cover to actually to be at the same level there.
 I'm going to ask a question that I wish I knew the answer to, but just assume the answer is yes.
 Is it 100% legal in the US to gamble online on these sports?
 No, no, it's not.
 I mean, if you're going to gamble on these gambling license, you need, it's 52 states.
 There's 52 licenses to do that.
 So if there's no, there's not, not every state has a license.
 It's actually open up for petting and ever come to it.
 We are looking to get the New York license.
 Hopefully we get that soon.
 So that's coming there.
 But then it's only for people to actually in within the years that can bet the use of things.
 But if people are logging on with the VPN to service in whatever country, that's possible to do that.
 But as I said, it's, but it's not, it's not legal in that way, I would say.
 So right now, it's not legal for anyone in the US to gamble on these sports.
 I, I, I don't think there's not, there's not any US entities are offering these sports pets, I would say.
 In the US market that you are, if you're based out of California or if you're based in Denver, I would say.
 You can't bet in the comments.
 You have with the casinos that offer that things to do that.
 So that's not right.
 But you can bet on it.
 I guess it's not really good if you go outside and use foreign betting service, but there's no American ones that are offering these sports petting.
 Okay, that's what I was asking though.
 Like, I mean, if I go to a site like a rivalry or like, you know, some of these other, I think players that are going off.
 If I visit them from the US and I place bets there, I mean, is 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.
 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 is.
 It needs to be regulations and those kind of regulations and rules in place to make sure that the best thing works and it's not there's no shady business whatever.
 So I don't think that's one of the things we're really working for to make sure that we are on the right side.
 We don't have any gray market those kind of things. We want to actually have the license in the US to be able to offer bets in the US for the people living there.
 And then we're looking, of course, at other states to do that.
 So we want to be that. And I think that's also probably we have that had maybe listed on a mask deck. We want to be the most transparent.
 That's the best thing company in the US on that part. Of course, we need to be there because we have the SEC watching all of us what we're doing and checking our books and all of that.
 But also we did multiple license. They also have the, they can also check our books 24 seven. So we can't do anything.
 Gray market things they want. But we just want to make sure that we are doing the right thing there.
 I don't think people have 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. They play at some point in this interview.
 I'm going to ask, you know, can they actually make a career out of this? So hold your answer for later.
 Can they actually can they make their parents rich doing this? No, I'm kidding.
 But so hold your answer. But I don't think from the events to the teams, you know, like you know what you know and you're into 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, 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. It is a several billion dollar industry. I'm not sure how many billion dollars it is, but it's huge and all that.
 And as I said, there's, there's teams that are trying to make money participating in leasing and tournaments to have the earnings.
 And of course, there's the players, they're all the superstars are making, making some players and making some huge money on doing that. And then of course, yeah.
 And then you, the tournament organizations are trying to sell and respond to ships and trying to get the explosion that they also have something to where they make money.
 So, and then you have also of course don't forget the influencers, the guys are also it's part of that ecosystem also providing that some of the people are former pro players and some other pro players also need to do a screening or trying to be influencers.
 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 bed, from there being at their bedroom to the big stages?
 What's the, what's the steps? What are the leads? They're going to play and that's not, that route is not really set there.
 But if you play basketball or you play football, you start a minor universe, all those steps, that's not any sport.
 That's where we need to, we need to build that within eSports so that people can find a different way to be better and find a way to compete in them.
 And that's why we need more leads, we need not just, a lot of the eSports tournaments are for the big tier one teams, the biggest teams.
 But they, maybe that's 25 teams in come to start, but there's so many others, how can we make them successful?
 How can they grow? How can we get more people playing in come to start, can make a living out of that?
 If you look at traditional sports where you have your hockey, NHL, A-A-HL, all those things differently.
 And if that doesn't work, you will fly out to Europe and then you have several leads that will come to the play and that's not the eSports how to build that part yet.
 And I think that's what we need, really, that's what eSports need to do. Take, take some of these, the best things for our traditional sport to make sure that we move that into the eSports.
 So you have all these different teams, different levels to play in, because you get, everybody can't go from the bedroom to the big stage of it.
 If it's the colon, if it's in Shanghai or whatever, that's a huge step to go.
 What are the Miloans and how can you find the career of a route there?
 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.
 So 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 it's interesting.
 Transitioning a bit to like the marketing side of things and the sponsorship and all of that.
 I mean, big brands have gotten into this space, obviously, in the U.S. side especially, I mean, I know it's worldwide, but I think you're seeing more of it from the U.S.
 Seen Nike getting into this space, seeing a lot of those brands.
 What's your perspective on the sponsorship, partnership side with brands and as a second part, maybe to that?
 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 insert monster energy or whoever that makes sense that has gotten involved in this.
 But I don't know what the baby step is for smaller medium brands, maybe it's hosting tournaments, I don't know, but you have two part question there.
 I mean, I mean, for the big brands, it's a way to talk to, as I get involved and talk to the community, be a part of that community.
 How are you going to reach, if you're 18 to 20, 18 to 30?
 I mean, usually traditionally, if you're marketing, I did that a lot of times when I was marketing new games, if you're a new Sonic game or if it's a new U.S.
 As I said, part of that was street fight to go for that.
 You bought bandar ads, you bought ads in magazines and if you want to be really crazy and cool with the campaign, you bought TV ads.
 None of that, if you're 18 to 35, you don't watch TV anymore.
 I think when I was a Dream Act, we were looking at the numbers and people spent like six minutes per day watching tradition TV.
 But they spent 74 or 75 minutes on watching YouTube or Twitch instead.
 So 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 it's also something with these brands, no, and I can know what it is to sponsor a team or a player because they've done that in basketball, they've done that in football or everything.
 So that's something they know.
 And I think that's the big thing for them to get in, meet that new target because they can't use the tradition away because those are dead.
 There's nobody watching that.
 And also, if you do bandar ads, some people, they have ad walkers.
 You're missing that out too.
 So how do you, this is a great way to do that.
 But of course, it comes down to a little bit of time today.
 What are you doing?
 Not just coming in the class to your loggers everywhere because that's not a word.
 You actually need to do some, you need to do some for the community.
 How can you be an able for something doing that?
 That's one of the key things for brands to get into.
 I think that's the thing to do there for them.
 So as I said, there's a couple of great examples.
 You mentioned Nike.
 I was, I also think what ESL did to get a bit Mercedes.
 How they actually, I would say, gave it on the hands.
 They guys follow us.
 We will show you way into eSport.
 How to work that and where it's starting working smaller ways.
 Create some activations for them.
 Like Mercedes, no, put that in providing the players with the ride in the CDs.
 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 machine on stage.
 Classical things that actually is the company knows what it is.
 And they understand it.
 So you don't have to go and talk about how does it work, how is the bracketing work?
 What's its sport?
 I mean, that's okay.
 And they, and then ESL together, Mercedes developed that part.
 The same they did with DHL.
 I think that's another one.
 They actually are really good on, on that partnership there.
 And also make them create a lot of involvement or other.
 DHL owners are part of the whole activation, the events there.
 Those are, I think, two good examples with the team over at ESL.
 These were those two mega brands that are not traditionally anything into esports.
 And usually, and also the issues again, where they actually can, they, they felt comfortable really.
 Because usually it's all putting, let's go, let's go counterstrike.
 It's the biggest, it's one of the biggest one.
 And it's easy to understand.
 But then you have all the violence, express coming in there.
 How do you, as a Mercedes, go and tell to your people that, yeah,
 I'm going to sponsor a game where somebody gets shot in the head.
 It's terrorist and counterstrike.
 Francisco, no, let's, I, 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 don't see that there's a shooting somebody has,
 it's a team game.
 It'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 the purpose.
 They know what they're doing.
 They're putting things over there.
 The smoke is going over there because it's not blocked down with those kind of things.
 It is a really, like a really tactical game there.
 It's the same as soccer.
 You know, the goal needs to go in the goal.
 But then there's all these different tactics, all these different kind of plays.
 You need to do it.
 That's the same in this case for counterstrike.
 But it's easy to understand there.
 And looking for medium, smaller, I mean, smaller brands that still cheap to get into
 esports.
 Not compared to what it was.
 It was a cost to sponsor an NBA team or whatever.
 It was called buying and whatever.
 It's still cheap.
 Of course, the prices have gone up over the couple of years.
 But I think there's still room for the prices to really grow there because the value
 get out of there, the viewership, the engagement you get from the fans.
 Because if you do it right, 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
 doing something for them, making sure that they can actually see that esports
 or gaming is something serious for them.
 Not just for people that come in and like, oh, you just play games.
 You don't have anything to do.
 You just go and go out and do something else.
 It's like if I'm competing.
 It's something they want to do there.
 It's something they want to look and react to do that.
 But I think for those guys, I mean, it's smaller step.
 Not necessarily running tournaments, but you can sponsor tournaments.
 So you can sponsor players.
 You can look at your local teams.
 How can we get them out the run?
 Give them a baseline to grow and hire the players, trainers, the team to be better.
 Those kind of things.
 Of course, the traditional sponsorship helps.
 But also you can do a lot of activities around the sponsor.
 It's not just having that logo plus everywhere.
 I mean, work with that tournament organizations to get the best thing.
 What activities can you do?
 What things can you provide there?
 I think it's also 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 as a start with them.
 They're going to tell you how you can do that.
 And then you can tell these sort of goals I want to meet.
 What are the KPIs I have?
 These sort of things we need to hit.
 And that's a good starting point for talking about it.
 Talk about maybe a few more of your day.
 What's your day-to-day looking like?
 What's your day-to-day activity as the head of eSports and on the gambling side?
 What are some of the KPIs for you or where you're trying to take things with the entertainment group?
 Yeah, I mean, only being able four weeks.
 It's fun.
 You'll have it all figured out yet.
 Come on.
 I should have.
 What are the things we are?
 Of course, one of the things.
 We're building out the plan.
 I mean, YGD, our platform for eSports betting is new.
 Nobody knows that.
 We need to build a brand awareness.
 How can we do that?
 How can we be sure to get people to know our brand name?
 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 things.
 Toward amounts.
 We're looking to do a team.
 So that's one of the things.
 Of course, we're looking at what is the best team's sponsor?
 What are the games you want to get into that?
 So that's something we are.
 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.
 And 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 take the brand awareness and then move this to conversions
 and to people playing our platform.
 So those sort of things.
 And of course, that's the YGD.
 But also, then, we're looking at how can we eSports and a team group is not just betting as one vertical that we have.
 We also look at other verticals within eSports because eSports is so,
 as a huge umbrella, there's different parts there.
 We are looking at what are the different.
 What are the other verticals we're going to enter into within eSports?
 That's also something we've been looking at.
 So hard to fight fraud in sports.
 That's, you know, I mean, you know, I mean, I had some most regulated now.
 I mean, the bigger sports, you know, are so regulated.
 And, you know, some NBA player was tanking.
 We know it.
 But I would think in eSports, at least in the early,
 it's not the early stage.
 It's been around a long time.
 But it's, you know, in the early stages of the gambling portion,
 that would be a concern.
 I mean, of course, I mean, I would say with any sport people has been cheating.
 It is regularly, if you look in every new game,
 this sheets happening, it is wall hacks where different things that happen.
 So, of course, that creates a lot of, I mean, for we providing odds on games,
 where we don't know is we need, there's an, do we know there's an empty sheet in there?
 So people can't cheat on those kind of things.
 So we need to be sure that every, those kind of things are placed.
 And then we also have all the people that are our betting that are exploiting.
 Exploiting if we have any missed anything in our offer terms that we're doing that.
 Of course, that, that happens too.
 So you need to be cautious in what the things you're doing and providing to the market.
 And I mean, we have, we have been running some campaigns that people have tried to exploit.
 And we have to say no.
 We had to block those, say no to those guys because they are not,
 not using it as in terms that we wanted it to be there.
 And then we, of course, we said no.
 And then we have to cancel some kind of the campaigns there.
 But it's different.
 It's different.
 As I said, we run campaigns to things and then you have the esport things also where it can be.
 People can, but you have that in traditional sports where people are going to take a dive or they can.
 Forfeit them.
 I would lose a game purpose just because they passed on something out there.
 That's how.
 But I think esport has taken a lot of precautions against cheating and those kind of things.
 And so those are the two things.
 Well, 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 is in difference verticals.
 We want to, we want just not want to, we don't want to just be a betting brand.
 We want to be more about esports and entertainment part.
 If that's, but if it could be production tournaments, it could be tournament, tournament platforms.
 Well, it's a lot of things we're looking at that we want to dive in to do that.
 In the US, you know, I know worldwide Counter Strike League legends and all that.
 I actually have a good, one of my good friends that I've worked with for a long time.
 And we actually did a radio show together back in the days.
 They've Scott Cole.
 He's the voice of NBA 2K.
 He's on ESPN 2 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 mad in all of those games.
 And, but it's, but as teams go and as the popularity of things,
 is it still as slanted towards those Counter Strike League legends, even in the US,
 as far as the players and teams and all of that stuff?
 I mean, usually the teams, if you look at the Dignitas, or you look at Cloud 9,
 or you look at the other US team, they usually have several, they play in several games.
 So usually they 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 to be competitive in that.
 It's not just that you're a Dignitas as a Counter Strike team,
 they actually have more teams where they're fighting, where they're playing.
 And so that's where they can actually gain more fans than, like, the Rangers,
 because that's just hockey.
 I mean, 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, or sorry, hockey, you don't care about the Rangers.
 But if you don't care about the Counter Strike, back care about League of Legends,
 I can still be a Dignitas fans, where I feel like I care about those two,
 but if you're 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 it 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 play that with my kids.
 Yeah, I don't know what it is.
 It's the weirdest thing when I saw them playing it a couple of years ago.
 I was like this 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 things, but it got it's fun.
 It's simple.
 It's simple.
 I mean, it's a simple game.
 The ball needs to go on the ground.
 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 I think that's a perfect game.
 It's actually can be super competitive, but it was a pleasure.
 Yeah.
 It's something we have to play with your friends in the sofa.
 I don't want to say drinking beer, but I'm saying that.
 Oh, yeah, I was drinking beer.
 I'm drinking beer and I'm playing.
 You can, of course, do soft drinks also or any drinks, whatever.
 Yeah.
 You can do a moan story.
 You can do a beer or whatever.
 But it's like hanging around a thing game.
 And you can do that.
 I think that's the beauty of that game.
 That's simple.
 It's easy to play on that.
 Yeah.
 You know, as we kind of close out here, I think one topic that's probably important,
 that I know is fueled a lot of the growth, which is when you mentioned it earlier,
 Twitch, fascinating.
 Yeah.
 So again, back to these layers.
 Who would have thought?
 And I guess having watched my kids now, it doesn't surprise me.
 And, you know, enjoying watching other people.
 But that whole voyeurism of who would have known how popular it would be.
 I guess to watch other people play video games, but that has really exploded.
 You know, the growth of it.
 And I'd love to know just your overall perspective on Twitch.
 You know, that, that layer.
 I mean, Twitch is a layer.
 I think that's, I mean, they, they've been wiping the competition for a while.
 I mean, what makes it shut down?
 Move over to Facebook.
 So it's going to be, as you see, what Facebook gaming is doing.
 I mean, Twitch, what do you call it?
 Status is dominant.
 They are like the number one free sporting keeping going or live live shows, I would say.
 Because it's not just the sport.
 It actually, all the influencers like them and going there.
 Team the Tatman or this lyric, those guys, 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 not Facebook is going to do that.
 But it's growing that part because it's.
 That's how the young kids come are consuming content today.
 It's not, it's not them.
 I mean, if you put a TV remote, you know, six, eight or kids, they're going to start.
 I can't do that.
 I can't scroll.
 I can't do that.
 I can't force that.
 I can't, it's commercial.
 How can I get past that?
 They don't, they don't see, they don't watch linear TV anymore.
 It's the way how to consume it.
 If it's YouTube or if it's Twitch, which are the two biggest one, I think it will continue for a while.
 Doing that.
 I mean, Twitch has a lot of competitors that doesn't survive this.
 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 myself in my big gamer names in the space.
 But uh, can they, can they get there?
 Like, and how do they get there?
 And is it like the, you know, what is the chances of your, you know, your child playing in like, you know, I'll speak to the US.
 Like the NFL is like 0.01%.
 Like you're going to make it.
 Is it, is the odds that stacked against that they can become a career or are these like actual avenues?
 I mean, there 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 Google.
 I was 16, he won 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 that, oh, you can't say eight hours.
 You need to go out.
 Yeah.
 The thing is they have all friends online.
 They don't, they don't, when they go out, nobody's out there.
 So like, who they going to hang with?
 Okay.
 But the thing is, you, you, you, you never say if the kids go out and hang in the park, right?
 I was like, oh, good, you're out.
 But things, if they play eight hours of video games, 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.
 And I think there's a lot of things they can do that way.
 Play more video games, be competitive, clean 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,
 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, made a, I didn't use sport, but I made a wrong three movie.
 I should be playing competitive instead.
 It is.
 But I think it's, you need to practice.
 It's all those hours.
 You look at the game and look at that.
 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, you need to focus on one game.
 You can't be Fortnite.
 You can't be counterstrike and legal that there.
 It has to be one game.
 And you have to like that game.
 They can, but it's a small chance to be as good as coming into tournaments.
 It's been playing for that for me.
 What was it?
 Three million at the auction stadium last year.
 Crazy.
 Anything any perspective on Valorant?
 You've heard of that.
 That game.
 I mean, is it sort of following the Fortnite model?
 It's such an interesting, you know, someone, you know,
 that's making a lot of money with the thinking through the economies of these things.
 Let's start $80 again.
 No, let's just give them all away.
 And sell dances and content and everything else and make even more money.
 That whole, that whole free, free to play sort of model.
 It's that crazy.
 I mean, it is that free to pay a model.
 It has been the most successful because if you pay $69 for a game,
 you don't pay, you don't pay anymore because you think you're,
 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,
 this game is the dance is a t-shirt.
 And now you're spending, actually, $1,000 or $2,000 for that.
 Because it's like, yeah.
 And it's all those micro transactions.
 It's the only five bucks a year, five bucks a day, five bucks.
 It's like 20 bucks a per day and then it's for a whole year and 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,
 the usual t-shirt or skin or dance.
 I mean, it's a small cost for doing that.
 I said that people love that and then you create some awareness around it
 and they make some part of that limited and all that.
 Then you get the prices up.
 Look at CS go in all the skins for the weapons where you know,
 some it's worth value at 25 cents and somebody's worth 25,000 dollars.
 Yeah.
 But it's the same big 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 had 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, 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?
 Haven't they own a serious building that up?
 Or they're actually going to use third party tournament organizations
 to run that as CS go?
 Maybe they haven't, maybe they haven't decided.
 Maybe they haven't.
 I haven't seen that but I think it's interesting.
 But I would, I would say that Valorant campaign has been one
 of the best things done for launching a new game.
 Of course, it's drier to the biggest, one of the biggest players
 in the industry.
 And they can, they have that power to do that.
 But as I said, people were going crazy about getting those
 beta codes, hanging, watching the people play that game.
 That was, I mean, looking at the numbers, they racked up for their
 first week there to get in there.
 They were crushing puts number.
 So it was crazy.
 But I think that was a really good campaign and smart move.
 Not have to spend that much.
 I mean, of course, they got spend some money on influence playing game.
 That's the right guys, but it's been worth a lot of for them.
 So great launch campaign for Valorant.
 Yeah.
 Looking forward to see, I'm looking forward to see what they can do
 with any sport.
 And I know there's a lot of teams that have started to pick up building
 their own teams to be there.
 So it's going, it's coming there.
 It's going to seem to see if they can, how it's going to compete
 with CSGO.
 I mean, because that's, I think that's the one that is competitive
 for now.
 So we'll see.
 Yeah.
 What, um, where's it all going?
 I mean, you know, like I, 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 that you don't know where it's going.
 Even if you go, when I started in 2013, 2014, 2013,
 a Dream Act, 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.
 But actually look at Fortnite,
 biggest game, I would say one of the biggest games,
 it runs concerts.
 It's a social, more a game and a social platform.
 Yeah.
 I think that's the, that's a cool thing with this industry.
 You don't know where it's going.
 The only thing you know is going to be,
 it's going to be growing.
 It's going to be bigger and it's going to become new,
 new ideas, new, new things to test.
 And that, that's what like being this,
 because the difference between 2013 and 2020 is huge.
 So many things happening and looking at that,
 when entering into eSports,
 and I think Riot did their first,
 a League of Legends find that Dream Act summer,
 I don't know if it was 2009, 2009 or something like that.
 I mean, it was like a hundred square meter booths.
 And like a year ago,
 they sold out the old Beijing Olympic Stadium
 bird's nest there.
 I mean, that's huge.
 That's 40, I don't know, 40, 50,000 people come in the van
 compared to the Dream Act that have maybe 40, 50 people.
 And it's only actually, maybe just 10 years between
 point A and point B there.
 So that's what I think.
 It's hard to say what we are in crystal ball.
 I think we would see more games.
 We would see more formats.
 It's not just PC console.
 We're accessing mobile.
 I think that's going to be something that really grows
 and coming 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.
 That is the code to go straight to Mike Tyson
 and Mike Tyson's punch out on Nintendo.
 I remember it since my childhood,
 kind of like up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right,
 B.A. star for what game?
 Contra.
 But 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 that's straight from memory from when I was a 10-year-old.
 I got my first Nintendo and literally beat Mike Tyson the first night
 because I played for like 12 hours straight.
 That was me.
 Between that and Legend of Zelda, it was dangerous.
 Isn't crazy all the memories you have are playing great games.
 And what it gives you and all the fun and joy you had.
 Because I was also mentioning when I was at a difficult time
 vision, when Xbox 360 came out,
 we started playing Rainbow Six Siege.
 I mean, we spent so many hours.
 People just went home, you know, had been with a family
 and eight o'clock to midnight.
 Everybody was a family.
 Good bye, see you.
 You're sitting there with your first online playing that game
 and people's shouting at each other.
 You can't throw a flashbang in my face and coming back,
 you need to do that.
 It had so much fun.
 I played a craze and then more and more of it came out
 with even more of that one.
 But it's great.
 It creates memories.
 It creates friends.
 You can hang with them.
 And now you're hanging 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 looking at Fortnite,
 looking at that Travis Scott,
 you're going to concept in the game, as I said.
 And then you have the number code there.
 That's not that many years between those things.
 I mean, maybe it was maybe 20.
 Yeah.
 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 throw a 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 come 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.
 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.com or Radical underscore results on Instagram.
 We'll see you next time.
 To learn more about Radical, visit Radical.com on the web
 or follow Ryan on Instagram at RyanAlford.
 Thanks for listening to the Radical Marketing Podcast.