Sup OP. So, I work in esports (sponsor acquisition for independent players, broker signings to teams, formerly worked at a decently sized sponsor, occasional tournament logistics staff, content production for teams), and I'm here to tell you: Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.
esports is hella top heavy. Unless you own a high performing team, you're making jack shit, and you'll likely be losing money at times. Even when you have a decently performing team, the required time investment is so high that the $/hr is shit tier, honestly.
If you don't have enough money to buy a team, you have a few options: 1. Invest in the scene itself (providers, sponsors, producers) 2. Start a team and hope for the best 3. If you have decent capital, look into starting an ownership group for a team.
I'll break these down below. But as a general warning, just don't do it unless you really enjoy the work. It's long hours, weird time zones, lots of stress, all for a pretty small return. From freelancing to full time work, I could have made far more money in traditional industries doing the same jobs. In addition, investing in esports is also really janky due to the life cycle of games. In 2012, you would have been looking to invest in SC2. In 2013, LoL. In 2014, Dota. In 2015-present, CS is the way to go. Now we're seeing some big gambles on OW (and there are more to come). There is a large chunk of it that's a guessing game.
Nolan Richardson
>the next games will be guild based Whoa now, let's not get ahead of ourselves.
Anything with a 40 man team is extremely bandwidth/netcode limited and it would constantly get shit on by games with more surgical netcode.
Jason Miller
>Investing in the scene esports is a minor player in the gaming sector as a whole, but it is growing. The pleb tier esports investor is better off just putting their money into ATVI, AMD, INTC, 0700 (Tencent), AMZN, etc. etc. Tencent trades on HKG, so you would need to ensure your broker offers access to it. These buys will let you profit off the marginal income that esports generates for these companies, even though it's pennies compared to their core businesses. The success of a game as an esport doesn't seem to have a major impact on the game's overall success, as the fanbase is such a minor part of the overall playerbase, and an even smaller part of the gaming audience as a whole. Even Twitch represents a relatively fractional part of Amazon's balance sheet. This is your play if you truly believe in the long term growth of esports and the ability for the parent companies to profit off of it to the same scale as traditional sports.
Joseph Wood
>Start a team This is how you'll have a shot at making some real esports skrilla. Except you probably won't. You're going to have to take a loss at first, putting up cash to sign unsponsored players or rosters to your new org. Unless you have a serious bank account, you'll most likely only be offering equipment and salary, no travel support, especially if it's a team game. You need at least a few decent results before you can actually talk to sponsors worthwhile. But even then, they won't be giving you much. All the low tier teams that you see with Razer and G2A sponsorships? Yeah, those are just free gear + referral links. We're talking non existent or minimal cash flow. This is actually where you can start to be a real businessman though. Smaller gear companies, smaller "geek" brands are willing to pay for low tier teams. It's going to be shit pay, but it's a cash flow. Fighting game players are some of your best bets because of this. They tend not to ask for much and there are plenty of stick/pad makers that will pay. Look into brands that are currently in the scene and then approach their competitors. Shit's fun. Sadly OP, you won't make much off of this. Let's assume that you even manage to get a player with CPT points, a CS team that gets in ESEA Premier, maybe even a Starcraft player who gets top 32 at DH. You're looking at $300/m salaries for these players. Your sponsorships might total a few grand a year. Your first year of profit will likely be at maybe $2500. Weigh all of this against the thousands of hours you put into contract negotiation, booking flights, coordinating with sponsors, managing social media, working on sponsor decks and negotiating with prospects, doing scouting research for new players, etc. etc. Unless you're Alex Garfield and tap a huge new sponsor market, Regi Dinh and brand the top team in a new hot game, or Nazgul and have literally perfect market timing, you won't make significant money. D:
Henry Perez
>Ownership Group This one is actually really exciting because it's finally starting to crop up. If you have a decent bankroll to throw around ($60-75K minimum), find 9 of your best friends and start an ownership group. From here, you have two options. Either buy out a previously existing organization and simply assume control or you can start a new org. Starting a new team will be easier, because with your combined bankrolls, you can actually afford non-shit tier players/teams. You're going to be able to pick up CS Minor teams, top 20 CPT players, top 8 DH Starcraft, maybe even a Dota Major qual team. If you go the LoL route, you're going to cough up half a mil for a Challenger slot, probably another quarter mil for the team to fill it. You'll be able to get big money sponsors, as well as have the ability to pull in new, big sponsors. That said, it will take time to see profit. Running a major scale team takes a staff and those cost money. You're going to be splitting 10 ways now, so it's going to be minimal income, maybe $8K a year, after management salaries are paid. Tbh, the instagram pics alone are worth it tho, hoes love globe travelers. Also Shaq selfies.
TL;DR - Don't fuckin do it
Evan Miller
>no one talking about heroes of the storm
Ian Evans
Before you get into that many specifics when you're talking about a potential investment start with identifying a revenue stream.
Let's be honest - most gamers are broke NEETs; generally speaking.
Major competition/team sponsors are only on board to sell product to their target audience (Nvidia, AMD, others misc computer hardware companies). Since that's not you I'm not sure what you would profit from.
Sponsor a team with the hopes they'll 'make it'? Even if they do.. by the time you factor all of the money you'd have put into getting them gear, possibly flying them to events, promotion etc. you'd probably make a really small profit.
Toss in a kid that's not good at hiding his cheats and your teams reputation can be destroyed the blink of an eye.
Not worth it senpai. No real money to be made there unless you're shilling computer hardware/software.
Jose Campbell
This was super interesting and informative. I'm glad I came back to check on this thread. Thanks a lot for the info senpai
Liam Jenkins
No problem! I really love what I do, but I've seen plenty of people get sucked in and lose thousands trying to profit off of the upswing. It's a tough, competitive world, with narrow profit margins until you hit the absolute top. The days of the Wild Wild West are over. D: Glad you enjoyed. I'll probably post more info the next time this issue comes up.
Noah Wright
Hey, man, what about just starting a Twitch channel and try to scam people into giving you donations?
>I'm a guy >I want to play my favorite RPG games and maybe new Unreal Tournament + CS:GO >My voice is fine, but I don't have a cam
Will I make it? And how much time should I invest in this bullshit scheme?
