YouSaid · the spoken record

Nicole LaPointe Jameson

lines on the record: 76
first: 2021-02-23
most recent: 2021-02-23
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“I think we are going to continue to lift trophies, obviously. It's an exciting year for us as live events. We're hoping we'll come back by the end of this year and we'll have some very nice big activations coupling our tournaments. But also I think we're trying to get smarter around how do we continue to build out data-driven decision making around e-sports athletics and what avenues that opens up not just for us internally in terms of managing costs and scouting talent in the esports space, but how do we support our leagues and potentially sell to other teams, that infrastructure as well. So that agency roster scouting play, I think, is an untapped area we might want to tap into.”
2021-02-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Evil Geniuses' CEO Nicole LaPointe Jameson on how to run an esports company · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You know, from a total volume point of view, it's probably direct sponsorships, but I'm very curious. The collegiate is interesting because education budgets or university budgets, they follow a different fiscal year. It tends to be May to June and May to June versus June to Jan. COVID has reshuffled quite a bit of traditional sports or athletics or club or intramural budgets into things like esports programming. And so very recently our pipeline in terms of potential has quadrupled just in the past two months this year hasn't signed much yet from this newfound growth, but I think end of this year we'll have a really good sense of our collegiate education proposals might be the ticket to better support. And then, of course, we have our evergreen league revenue share from our league partners.”
2021-02-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Evil Geniuses' CEO Nicole LaPointe Jameson on how to run an esports company · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“fantasy and gambling sites and that has been an excellent plug and play for us that we didn't realize that would be as lucrative as an entire business line as it has been and so we're going deeper into that area and then of course the regular marketing advertising ad sales but that's tiny merchandise everyone always talks about oh fashion and apparel that's slim margins there we kind of just keep that for the fan excitement manage costs”
2021-02-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Evil Geniuses' CEO Nicole LaPointe Jameson on how to run an esports company · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, we have a really great and very fast growing direct sponsorship line. My sales team is amazing. I was able to somehow convince a bunch of people who had never worked in esports and did sales both sell and buy side and traditional sports and consumer product goods to come join this clunky esports team and sell it and they've done fantastically. And that's our biggest revenue stream. But we also have, as I mentioned, our collegiate consulting and our education consulting and curriculum development, which has been newer for us for about seven months into that pipeline externally facing. And it's been surprisingly fast-growing. We also, our newest product, and we actually roll out with our last public component at the end of this quarter of our tech and data analytics because we use tools to make decisions internally. We realized we could white-label those tools and sell them direct. And then we also realized we could white-label even more and sell to larger partners, including smaller leagues, other teams.”
2021-02-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Evil Geniuses' CEO Nicole LaPointe Jameson on how to run an esports company · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We took the super seriously again, is a cost investment that I am lucky that I've investors to financially support because I do believe that is needed for us to continue to do well on the long term, even if there's a short-term financial implication. But if I create an unsafe work environment for myself or others, it defeats the whole purpose of trying to grow and expand and bring a positive outlook to the gaming industry. So don't take those things lightly at all, but we take them really seriously. And it was a good wake-up call and call to action of how can we always continue to optimize and do better.”
2021-02-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Evil Geniuses' CEO Nicole LaPointe Jameson on how to run an esports company · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We do social media audits and deeper background checks with all of our hires, not just staff, but also players. We also do quarterly harassment and good communication skills training through a third-party vendor. And we really bring in infrastructure and programs. We call it How to Live Evil, as Evil Genius is, around like both players, how do you think of your brand on social media? How should you do code of conduct? What are resources you have to help if you ever feel uncertain, as well as even staff and management crisis and de-escalation training?”
2021-02-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Evil Geniuses' CEO Nicole LaPointe Jameson on how to run an esports company · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Conduct, very explicitly, and then we have to make a decision based on that. And so what pains me about this situation is some of the behavior had been prior to my time and I hadn't been aware of it and it had only been brought to light through social media, in which case we quickly, quickly acted.”
2021-02-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Evil Geniuses' CEO Nicole LaPointe Jameson on how to run an esports company · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Removing players off contract cycle is something we take super seriously, both from like a legal and financial liability, but also it's very disruptive to the teams, to a community. And so we take any claims of someone breaking our employment conduct or our harassment policies very, very seriously. And we believe that people can make mistakes and recover from them, but there are certain mistakes or repeated actions that I cannot in good faith turn a blind eye from because it also creates an internal unsafe environment. I'm trying to protect the masses of my people at EG. And so we did have to remove some players earlier last year around similar claims. It's a process, right? We want to keep it objective. So we bring in third-party investigators to due diligence the situation. We find documented incidences of either repeated behavior or something that breaks the code of”
2021-02-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Evil Geniuses' CEO Nicole LaPointe Jameson on how to run an esports company · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“A Chinese company, our fans are there. And so again, trying to be thoughtful of how we navigate, what we participate in and why is important. And I cannot claim, like I will not even pretend we do it perfectly. We do it excellently, but we definitely try every day to be thoughtful around the why of what we do to bring people along with us on our mission, not isolate fans or communities.”
2021-02-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Evil Geniuses' CEO Nicole LaPointe Jameson on how to run an esports company · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It can be hard personally knowing Elpha in the room is there are many spaces in business globally that we participate in that me as an individual might not usually be able to participate in by race or my gender especially and that is hard to navigate and so the most we can do again by showing that being a values forward sports team sticking to our guns around our mission and showcasing competitive excellence can hopefully push an authentic ways rather than force people to confront something they don't want to confront to bring positive change. Like we try to do the most that we can do realistically and we're very big realistic around what has impact and what doesn't versus what fights should we take that stop our business from continuing we have to be thoughtful it would be unrealistic for us to cut out as a gaming company China for example as a country because half of developers in the world are owned partially by Chinese countries”
2021-02-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Evil Geniuses' CEO Nicole LaPointe Jameson on how to run an esports company · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Similar happenings in the Middle East, in China, in Northern Africa, and so making sure we're thoughtful around, okay, if we do this, what are the ripple effects and what's the full network of what is the message we're trying to say and how do we be consistent globally rather than just locally is important. And so that means some conversations because we're not ready to have them or we're not ready to put again action behind the words. We stay away from or we think longer term, how do we support and how do we create long-term positive progress.”
2021-02-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Evil Geniuses' CEO Nicole LaPointe Jameson on how to run an esports company · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“There were many race-related incidents in America over the past year that I think everyone is aware of in terms of legal justice and recourse for race-related incidents. And it's hard because I have a lot of people at EG who intrinsically, deeply, deeply care. And they're like, well, we have a platform. Let's say something. Let's push. That's a conversation that we can support privately as individuals, but as a corporate entity, what can we do that is more than just showing social media support? We didn't see a clear pathway there of where could more than just a dollar donation or a tweet really push the needle. And so that's something we decide to handle differently than a lot of like public support that you saw other maybe social media accounts of other sports teams do. It's also tough, right? Because we're global. There are a lot of incidents of, okay, well, if we speak on this, do we also talk about”
2021-02-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Evil Geniuses' CEO Nicole LaPointe Jameson on how to run an esports company · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“What do our players care about? Our players pick half of our charitable donations that we do every year, right? It's us that decides where we support. It's an alignment to our league partners. Like what are they trying to achieve and where are goals that we can co-help together, as well as what sticks to my shareholders' values, my investors' values, and our corporate strategy. And so that means we do elect to not participate in things, but it also means we are selective and very purposeful and thoughtful around what we do choose to participate in.”
2021-02-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Evil Geniuses' CEO Nicole LaPointe Jameson on how to run an esports company · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's a tough balance, and I think it is the more internal culture deflating conversation. So like, how do we pick what conversations we internal conversations we don't? And not to sound like overly annoyingly corporate, but it starts from our mission, vision, and values and quite literally, again, going back to my annoying data decision making, right? Does it fit into the matrix of this is what we set out to do? Does this aid, is it neutral or is it negative to these causes and building a playbook of how even my team members at EG can operate understanding, okay, what lanes do we play and what lanes do we not? Do we have a voice and do we have a say in this conversation? Does it help us or is it to make us look good? Because we also don't like to do things just for the optics of it. That's a waste of energy for me and as well as people can see through that shallowness. So how do we show through action and how do we back it up and support the things that we do in the conversations we want to enter into? That tends to be our filter. But it's also great because we have a really good list.”
2021-02-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Evil Geniuses' CEO Nicole LaPointe Jameson on how to run an esports company · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We've taken a very education and values focused approach to who do we work with? Who do we partner with and why? And that also resonates with partners. When brands stop spending on direct marketing and advertising during COVID, their charity, goodwill, and community budgets didn't stop. So we were able to activate and support brands bringing their awareness to different spaces through what we offer in activations. By being nimble in those areas, we are able to show positive traction across fandom development, revenue development, and even competitive results. Again, without deprecating our core product.”
2021-02-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Evil Geniuses' CEO Nicole LaPointe Jameson on how to run an esports company · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I love Ed Tech Bucks or Even our community partner, if you view us okay, a lot of you sports costs go to direct marketing, but we can do good in the world, bring up brand awareness, and get customer conversion or fan conversion through community partnerships in Google. So we're really strategic around who we even partner with in terms of community partnerships. And so we've been able to look at areas that we authentically care about and find ways that are not predatory or actually support the core of our business by bringing in”
2021-02-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Evil Geniuses' CEO Nicole LaPointe Jameson on how to run an esports company · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Second of all, but that's what these are these are the peripheral business arms we then use to support. So for example, pushing into all these initiatives with colleges and bringing in the next leaders of esports, we partnered with universities to build out their esports programming, curriculum, facilities, whatever it is. That consultation pipeline often rivals depending on the season or the quarter, rivals our direct sponsorships for our teams. Those are big bucks.”
2021-02-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Evil Geniuses' CEO Nicole LaPointe Jameson on how to run an esports company · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And no other team has taken that stance before, and it was a very authentic and easy point for me to come in. And when I started at EGU, it was eight people. We just hit 150 people that fall under that vision as well and like to support that space. So it's been good for us.”
2021-02-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Evil Geniuses' CEO Nicole LaPointe Jameson on how to run an esports company · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We haven't targeted any women hiring. We are 30% people of color, which is also very high for gaming. Even our athletes, if you take diversity as more, which we do than just race, ethnicity, or religion, we have parents that can actually compete on our roster. We have people that came from low-income third world countries that have been able to come here and bring different types of social mobility to their life through esports. And we like to celebrate that because at the end of the day, these are the best athletes. So whatever we can do to get the best athletes in our house works for me as a business. And people rally behind those storylines because, again, why do you follow a brand that is not geo-affiliated? You know, it's the storylines and it's the people. And when you have people with compelling stories that speak to you as a consumer, like we are, EG is the voice of the people.”
2021-02-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Evil Geniuses' CEO Nicole LaPointe Jameson on how to run an esports company · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Gaming is ubiquitous and should be ubiquitous. And the fact that no other organization has figured it out of how to actually navigate that space well is silly. Because for me, again, I go back to, you pick the content creator, you pick the pure athlete. I always want the best athlete. But the data shows the best athletes aren't just the ones you know and have conversations with because they are faces in the space. If you open doors for the best of the best, they tend to come. And so we've really pushed for organic non-quota, non-targeted hiring through here's what EG is. We offer maternity, paternity leave. We offer college tuition stipends when you leave our rosters. We offer a lot of things that help bring other people and break down barriers that might have existed into the fold. And that has resulted in a really interesting, just in two years, right? We are a tech and gaming company that is 52% female leadership and management position.”
2021-02-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Evil Geniuses' CEO Nicole LaPointe Jameson on how to run an esports company · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Part of its personal, when I came into the space, I was nervous. I was a triple first in terms of esports team CEOs, race, gender, and age. And I was very nervous of what reception would be like. And part of me was not surprised by reception, but part of me was also very lifted by the amount of people that came out of the woodwork per se. We're like, we've been here. It's amazing to see a voice or someone that looks or could speak for us like us. And that story became more and more frequent. There are so many people that don't fit the perceived narrative of who a gamer is in the gaming community. And so part of it is personal. Like I'm so excited to have a platform to give a megaphone to people whose voices felt like they weren't heard before, even though they are a legitimate parties and creators and innovators in this space. But also professionals.”
2021-02-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Evil Geniuses' CEO Nicole LaPointe Jameson on how to run an esports company · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And that's exactly why we've done it very carefully because on the spectrum, if you ask me, the end of the day, my athletes are athletes. And it's great. We have to support them. We have to build a brand. We have to keep lights on the business. But if they suck at the game, that's not interesting to me at all. And so there is a balance, right? You can't be all things to all people. And so that manifests into us signing pure content creators. That manifests in us carving out, okay, you get two production days a month and then, oh, if you miss that window, partner, you can't use this player right now. We have to manage their balance because unlike just content creators or other esports teams that fully focus on the entertainment side, we blend both.”
2021-02-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Evil Geniuses' CEO Nicole LaPointe Jameson on how to run an esports company · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Think that cuts against that you're going to be a great professional athlete at your game when, okay, we also need you to monetize your life. Like we need you to live in this house and party all the time.”
2021-02-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Evil Geniuses' CEO Nicole LaPointe Jameson on how to run an esports company · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Turn out so great. Definitely something we're looking at. We actually, thanks for calling me out. We just hired some heavy hitters from both gaming and entertainment to help boost our digital marketing and digital social. We are pretty good at the native content creation more size of life, but the more of the phase clan entertainment. That's where we're expanding. We focus a little differently, e.g. historically before I came in was known as only really an athletic esports team. So we're a little bit behind on the expansion to entertainment content product. But we've moved into spaces where we're either a first mover or the only mover, really also touching around, I mentioned the education and bridging what is esports for different audiences, as well as DE&I spaces, making sure esports is accessible. We were one of the first esports team to actually have a podcast. We were one of the first esports teams to be in, well, have multilingual content creation.”
2021-02-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Evil Geniuses' CEO Nicole LaPointe Jameson on how to run an esports company · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“from Nicole Point Jameson. But what is interesting about the geoffiliation market that we are exploring is, you know, if you look at the average viewer of ESPN is what, 54 and why do people become fans of sports teams that you traditionally see on traditional sports broadcasts? It's usually family or I was born in a location or I live in a location so I'm a fan of the location team. But because we are an entertainment product, we can create value proposition through our brand of why do you become a fan of a brand kind of like clothing or a music artist, which can have broader reach. So we can do both. We can still geoffiliate, but we can go broader. But in terms of the volume of the pie that I want to cut a slice out of, geoffiliation is always something we look at, but it's not going to be my priority because I have many more fans across the globe than just I could tap into only in Seattle. But we can do both authentically and well.”
2021-02-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Evil Geniuses' CEO Nicole LaPointe Jameson on how to run an esports company · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The Pacific Northwest esports team, which is great. We have fans here. We can do local activations, but I think COVID showed this perfectly. We can still connect with our community, even when local things are disrupted because our community is global. And that's a larger breath. We hit just our main social channels hit over 70 million impressions a month. Not through target, that's organic impressions growed over time versus I don't bear with me, I'm not a geography expert. Like, I don't know how many people are in Ohio if I were to start an Ohio esports team. Wow.”
2021-02-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Evil Geniuses' CEO Nicole LaPointe Jameson on how to run an esports company · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I get this question a lot, especially from traditional sports people. Why would I be interested in going deep in a small local market when I already can touch a global audience authentically and market against them authentically with lower level of effort because we're digital? If you look at the ET says it's the first word problem, we just started setting up our Asia and Russia-based social media and infrastructure and we grow like 8% month over month organically. It's massive. The fandom globally is massive and those maybe not as valuable as a consumer from a marketing point of view as a North American viewer, an EU viewer, but the volume of people is something to really contend with. And we're a digital product. We are accessible by everyone. There's no reason like we, of course, e.g. Seattle.”
2021-02-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Evil Geniuses' CEO Nicole LaPointe Jameson on how to run an esports company · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“See, this is why you're in charge. So it's not geo affiliated to a place. And then you end up chasing after a team of kids who live in a house in the Philippines. Why not try to make it geo affiliated? Is that just a bad business idea?”
2021-02-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Evil Geniuses' CEO Nicole LaPointe Jameson on how to run an esports company · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Right, like that's not a natural instinct for a startup. And then, in particular with sports, sports are traditionally very local. Esports does not seem like there's a New York City team or a Kansas City team or whatever, right? Like it's inherently this delocation, what's the word I'm looking for?”
2021-02-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Evil Geniuses' CEO Nicole LaPointe Jameson on how to run an esports company · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Guess one question I have is most startups, young businesses, and I recognize that evil geniuses is 20-some years old, but it's still in startup mode. You're running like a startup. They don't run towards asymmetric global competition.”
2021-02-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Evil Geniuses' CEO Nicole LaPointe Jameson on how to run an esports company · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“APAC regulations versus China versus North America, they're all different, and it requires us to be very quick footed and have a lot of support to make sure we can navigate those scenes appropriately.”
2021-02-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Evil Geniuses' CEO Nicole LaPointe Jameson on how to run an esports company · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Equalizer is that competitively, right, if we're in a round-robin open qualifier tournament takes place in Singapore and it's us backed by institutional investors and sports investors versus a group of friends from the Philippines who they've done nothing but played this game for 10 years, it's very hard sometimes for us to give a value proposition of why go through all the rigama role of structure and this one Some of the athletes can still see, well, if I just live in the EU, if I live in APAC and I can, I don't need to pay taxes, I can just play like it's the education component of why be an infrastructure business and be legitimately supported for very short-term gains focused youth, which tends to be our athletes, is harder for us to navigate and manage because globally regulations are so different and EU regulations for tournaments for”
2021-02-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Evil Geniuses' CEO Nicole LaPointe Jameson on how to run an esports company · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Fascinating, right? So we are in some franchise leagues that we have regulations we follow and some leagues where there's no regulation, so we can pull players from across the world, but we're a US company, so they have to be of the legal working age, they have to have certain hours and minimum wage requirements versus we sometimes compete against Chinese teams. Are you 12 or are you 16? I have no idea. Oh, why is your agent also look 12? And who's paying you guys? It can be a bit It's very frothy in terms of how well structured some teams are in terms of backend legitimacy from a business point of view. However, what is an interesting”
2021-02-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Evil Geniuses' CEO Nicole LaPointe Jameson on how to run an esports company · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Okay, that makes me feel better. Maybe not, actually. I can personally say, even as a team owner, more broad facing incumbent providers in the agency, the sports infrastructure, even like sports science and wellness, please enter the space because that helps us grow at a mature and sustainable level. Right now it's a little bit, there's still some wild west. We're a North American team, even though we have global competitions. But if the more eastward you go, the more wild west it becomes in that infrastructure because the problems we face here is that North America generally is trying to articulate the value to the product versus when I travel to China with the team, we can leave the airport, we see our faces on a bus for some reason, and it's very demonstrated people love esports, but the infrastructure in the money behind it isn't as much. And so those often competing universes under one big bucket of esports.”
2021-02-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Evil Geniuses' CEO Nicole LaPointe Jameson on how to run an esports company · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You know, what's interesting to me is that economy exists, but it's very much, I'm not sure if it just is not the education bridge of like, hey, this ecosystem system or this system is available, was made aware or not, but it's not bullshit. For our players, only 30% are represented by agents and by agencies that are the real ones, you know, UTA, CAA, large conglomerates. But then there's a lot of like, oh, my uncle's an agent. There's a lot of...”
2021-02-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Evil Geniuses' CEO Nicole LaPointe Jameson on how to run an esports company · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I So, this is something I think about a lot, especially in the creator ecosystem, which we pay a lot of attention to. It's new, but the cultural product it's making is not maybe not new, right? It's people making videos. At the end of the day, it's still just people making videos, then they get monetized directly or through advertising or some way. And so the infrastructure of Hollywood has sort of raced towards the creator economy. And so you do have lots of law firms now and agencies and marketing people. And the creator economy is kind of big enough.”
2021-02-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Evil Geniuses' CEO Nicole LaPointe Jameson on how to run an esports company · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I don't want any deals. Don't put me in sponsorship house. I just want to play. And if they're good enough, great. Put your money where your mouth is and that's fine. Some of them are like, I really love this game. I love making content in the fitness space. We can support that. Some are like, hey, you know, I used to be a pro. Actually, I can give a good example. We have this one player, Ricky Ortiz. She used to be one of the best Street Fighter players in the world. And now she's a content creator. And she's super into Voke and fashion. And so we got her in Japanese vogue. We got her working with anime partnerships. We got her in an absolute global marketing campaign for inclusivity in the LGBTQ space. We can navigate much more by the individual because it's not an overwhelmingly large vehicle for us to really manipulate and support. And it's a very hands-on tactile just by I think the industry maturity. It's a bit more junior where every person really has a voice in matter still in esports. It's not as infrastructured, as layered as all the agents.”
2021-02-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Evil Geniuses' CEO Nicole LaPointe Jameson on how to run an esports company · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think that varies by the player, right? The good news is, you know, I have 41 player athletes. It's a manageable number to really know each as a human. And so there's quite a bit of variation in their interest and their passions. Some of our athletes are like,”
2021-02-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Evil Geniuses' CEO Nicole LaPointe Jameson on how to run an esports company · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So our employment agreements are a little different also by e.g. being a product and a subsidiary of a large financial services private equity company. Our employment agreements, our legal structure is we've probably fallen the far end of the spectrum of really buttoned up, really proper legal risk avoidance.”
2021-02-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Evil Geniuses' CEO Nicole LaPointe Jameson on how to run an esports company · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“They're so good at entertainment. They haven't nailed the sports side though. Oh man, Lee's lawyer's going to call me up tomorrow.”
2021-02-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Evil Geniuses' CEO Nicole LaPointe Jameson on how to run an esports company · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Face cleanse probably a good example because in the bimodal spectrum of how to esports team operate, they're full entertainment. They don't. They don't really follow the athletics model. Well,”
2021-02-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Evil Geniuses' CEO Nicole LaPointe Jameson on how to run an esports company · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, those are your deals, not their deals. And so I'm just assuming they're full time employees. They have 401k in health benefits inside of those contracts. You're saying we're going to own a percentage of all the deals. Happen around you”
2021-02-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Evil Geniuses' CEO Nicole LaPointe Jameson on how to run an esports company · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“For example, I might have any sports athlete, but then if they're very much into fitness or fashion, you can bridge other areas of similar culture more naturally than if they were off on their own or just through gaming.”
2021-02-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Evil Geniuses' CEO Nicole LaPointe Jameson on how to run an esports company · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Is their business word entered see, this is where the entertainment comes back, and we own those rights, we sell those rights, we manage those rights. So our players, our celebrities and their own rights and realms, and that helps the team. They, of course, get a cut of that, but the onus is on us to manage and support and sell against and brand build for them essentially. And that's another reason why the model is a bit more sustainable, because it gives us additional maneuverability around how do we activate with partners, what types of activations do we do, what type of sponsorships can we sell, and all the different spaces we can sell”
2021-02-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Evil Geniuses' CEO Nicole LaPointe Jameson on how to run an esports company · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“In the next five years, it's a mix between the league revenue share. So we get a cut of the work that Riot does, which is excellent, as well as exactly what you said, the ancillary. Our direct sponsorships, our player appearances, giveaways, our third-party programs that we run that support the core or are supported by the core of our product, which is the team. Prize pool is not a driver for revenue. I think that's the biggest misnomer in esports space. People love floating one of our other teams, competes for upwards of $40 million prize pool for a singular event called the International Every Year in Dota. People are like, wow, esports teams must be so rich with that prize. It mostly goes to players or back to the league. franchising is interesting to us because it gives a revenue share we get part of broadcast rights and revenue part of league sponsorship rights and revenue as well as then we can sell our own direct sponsorships against it too”
2021-02-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Evil Geniuses' CEO Nicole LaPointe Jameson on how to run an esports company · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“or valve esports even though it's True legal and financial stickiness in support to make the product viable, right? It's a little bit of an assured, we're all going to work for the same end goal, which unfranchised leagues don't really have to. They have no one to report into. They don't have a board of owners per se who have invested into the product. So each developer is assessing this and navigating in their own way, per se, but it definitely is not something to be underlooked.”
2021-02-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Evil Geniuses' CEO Nicole LaPointe Jameson on how to run an esports company · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Some developers have let third parties run their leagues. And two good examples on ESL and Blast are two league partners, and they are focused on making a top of line broadcast an accessible product. And so depending on how much, again, the developers give leeway for people to use their IP of the game to create an ecosystem, that really supports high tides raise all ships here. It seems clear to me, seems less clear to others maybe, but it's something where the right constituents are focused on the right aspects of the job because it is a very large task to making games, being a game developer is a huge struggle, very expensive, crazy amount of labor, very hard to keep up. Esports is interesting in that it brings great visibility, gives good player conversion, boosts product reputation, but for some of these, like for example riot,”
2021-02-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Evil Geniuses' CEO Nicole LaPointe Jameson on how to run an esports company · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Sometimes, I know it's a bad answer, but some developers run their own leaks. And then I think you see those tensions pretty clearly. I don't need to call them out. But some developers.”
2021-02-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Evil Geniuses' CEO Nicole LaPointe Jameson on how to run an esports company · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Potentially many times bigger than the market of people who will watch League of Legends. So there's like an inherent dynamic between the people who make the games and a company like yours where you're trying to make something that's great and fun to watch as an entertainment product and they're trying to make something that's easier to participate in. Do you think that tension is unresolvable? Because sometimes when you say Fortnite is constantly changing the game, they're doing it to make it more interesting to play, not more interesting to watch other people play.”
2021-02-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Evil Geniuses' CEO Nicole LaPointe Jameson on how to run an esports company · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Said professional sports have a leg up, which is an amazing way to think about the NBA, it's just like a Scrappy startup with a leg up. But one of the things that's true about pro sports, the NBA, baseball, and the NFL, they tune their product to make it easy to watch. Because the market for playing football is actually very small. Like very, very few people will ever play football. Maybe more people will play basketball, but still the market for being a professional basketball player is still pretty small. The market for playing Fortnite is huge.”
2021-02-23 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Evil Geniuses' CEO Nicole LaPointe Jameson on how to run an esports company · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT