29 Jan Football clubs investing in Esports – Draft
Outline:
I have done two feature articles on the emergence of Esports within professional football. The first piece is around why Premier League clubs have invested in Esports, focusing mainly on the business side of the partnerships that they have made with companies. For this piece, I have interviewed Christian Brindley, and Esports lecturer and Staffordshire University and Trevor Keane, the owner of Esports consultancy company Sportego. I have also spoken to FIFA player, Joey Poole, and will speak to two more. I am also going to interview Brandon Smith, an Esports commentator. The audio in the piece needs improvements with the sound, but the majority of the written content is included, apart from the interviews yet to be completed. This piece is aimed towards young Esports fans, as well as fans of Premier League clubs, so they can get a feeling of why their clubs are interested in the industry.
The second article covers Scunthorpe United, a lower league English football club, who have recently set up an Esports team. This piece doesn’t focus as much on the business side, but more so on why the club have started an Esports team, the benefits for them and the partnerships they have made. To do this, I have interviewed Head of Marketing at Scunthorpe, Rob Noble, as well as the owners of the two partnering Esports companies, Arron Dellosa and Trevor Keane. I was due to make an audio slideshow of an event, however, the club have so far not taken part in any events so that was not possible. I have, therefore, decided to take it upon myself to add a section about how the Esports team operates, which have interviewed the manager, Danny Pierce, to get the ins and outs of that. There is also more audio than originally intended to make up for the lack of a slideshow. The audio needs to be tweaked to make the sound better, but the piece is complete other than that. This piece is targetting young football and Esports fans, Scunthorpe United supporters, as well as people who don’t completely understand the industry and why clubs are investing.
Why are Premier League clubs investing in Esports?
Premier League clubs are pumping money into Esports to improve their branding and appeal to a younger demographic.
Premier League clubs have started to dip their toes into the world of Esports in recent years and it certainly doesn’t seem to just be a phase. The process all began in May 2016, when West Ham United snapped up gamer, Sean ‘Dragonn’ Allen, to become the first ever UK football club to sign a professional Esports player. Since then, every single Premier League club now has some kind of investment in Esports, alongside a number of clubs in the English Football League and several more across Europe.
Notably, EA Sports’ FIFA gaming franchise, which the clubs are predominantly looking to build their Esports future around, appears to be going from strength to strength. Across a quarter of a century, the series has sold over 260 million copies of the games, making over £3 billion in the process. Astoundingly, in just a five-year period, it went from selling 14.5 million copies of FIFA 13, to over 24 million sales of FIFA 18.
Alongside those figures, Esports is being used as a tool to improve the branding of clubs as, on the whole, football is becoming much more business based, rather than just being simply about what happens out on the pitch. Furthermore, video gaming has been a huge part of the advancements in technology over the last two-to-three decades, and whether people like it or not, it has changed the way young people socialise and spend their free time. Football clubs, as they look to appeal to a younger demographic and gain new supporters, appear to have targetted Esports as one of the best possible areas to help them succeed in doing just that. With that in mind, Christian Brindley said:
“With football clubs entering and investing in Esports, it allows for them to expand their brand and revenue. Young people under the age of 35 are now spending more time watching online games, instead of watching traditional sports. If clubs form partnerships with Esports companies, they then have the ability to tap into that revenue stream and potentially reap the benefits.”
Depending on the stature of the club and how much they invest in Esports, the financial rewards can be relatively high. Some clubs are just currently riding the wave and seeing where it goes, while others are staging tournaments and have their Esports players competing all over the world.
After setting the trend within the Premier League, West Ham United continues to be one of the industries leading clubs. In late 2016, they hosted the first ever gaming tournament that involved professional clubs. Players from the likes of Manchester City and Sporting Lisbon took part for a cash prize of £1500, and it was held at the Hammers’ London Stadium. Then, in late 2018, West Ham held a FIFA tournament that was open to the public, which was sponsored by the clubs official investment and Esports partner. Over 1000 people entered the tournament at the qualifying stage, before 16 finalists were invited to the Olympic Stadium to battle it out for a cash prize of £10,000 – from a prize pool of £25,000. Events such as this gather interest from not just fans of the club, but Esports followers across the UK and the world.
– Youtube clip of event?
When asked about whether there is currently big money for football clubs in Esports, Christian Brindley explained that:
“It is very dependant on the approach that the clubs take. Some of the clubs could earn money via merchandise sales, but that really depends on the popularity of the players within their teams. They could also generate revenue by having their players stream regularly and take a cut of the advertisement as well as endorsements. A lot of it is about getting a good plan together and a following behind you.”
The partnering companies
Whilst the clubs are largely reliant on the advice and guidance from Esports companies, as they look to gain a march on their competitors, the partnerships can also be very profitable for their partners. Christian Brindley stated:
“Esports companies also benefit from the partnership, as they can use a strong brand such as Manchester United to expand their own brand. It means that a lot more eyes could potentially be on their business and it generates interest.”
One of the companies that have taken big strides as an Esports partner is Sportego, who originally started out as a sports consultancy and fan engagement company. Since taking the plunge into Esports in 2016, Sportego have worked with a number of British clubs, including a few in the Premier League, as well as some of the biggest clubs in Europe’s top leagues. They also helped Leicester City defender, Christian Fuchs, launch his ‘NoFuchsGiven’ Esports academy in 2018, to become the first professional footballer to have their very own Esports team.
Here is Trevor Keane, the leading consultant and owner of Sportego, providing an interesting insight into how his company has and is developing alongside Esports, as well as the tournaments they have been involved in and the clubs that they have partnered with.
The players
There is potentially big money to be earned by professional Esports players, but the prize pools involved with FIFA are yet to reach the heights of other Esport titles. As Christian Brindley explains:
“FIFA as an Esport does not have as large of a prize pool as games such as League of Legend (LoL), Defense of the Ancients (DotA) and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO). The highest pool recorded so far came from the FUT Championship 2017 Finals, and was valued at $400,000.”
In contrast, Epic Games, who published the hugely popular ‘Fortnite’, announced in 2018 that they would be funding $100m worth of prize pools within the first year of tournaments for the game. With the prize pools in FIFA being much lower, it makes it difficult for some professional Esports players. For the players at Premier League clubs, some teams pay their players a salary, while others only pay with prize money. However, the players are often taking an average of around 70% of the sales from merchandise, streams, appearances etc.
There is often a misconception made at the elite of Esports, that players should be playing different games in order to improve their stature within the industry and appeal to fans across other platforms. While this is the case for some, Trevor Keane talks about why football clubs should treat their players as just FIFA players, as opposed to them playing other games as well.
Similarly to Trevor Keane, Christian Brindley states that it is not in the best interests of Esports players to compete across other platforms:
“It is normally bad practice to have a single player involved in more than one game, as you want them to focus on that game as much as possible.”
Interestingly though, Premier League clubs have been linked in the past with creating their own Esports teams for other titles, where they would sign professionals from those games. There are clubs in Germany and France’s top divisions that have taken this approach and Christian Brindley talks about why this could be profitable:
“Although FIFA does have a large player base with around 12.3 million in 2017. As large as that number is, League of Legends has a reported player base of over 100 million, so it makes sense for a club to expand into games with larger audiences that could then lead to them expanding their brand to players who do not follow or watch football. Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) have competed within Rocket League and DoTA 2, for example.”
– (Not sure whether to include this in the piece after using him in my Scunthorpe article – but this is different content. I thought it may be useful for balance.) Arron Dellosa, who is the founder and CEO of Virtual Pro Gaming (VPG), who specialises in FIFA ‘Pro Clubs’, believes that players taking part in other games isn’t such a bad thing though, as it helps the branding of players and the company they work for. Can be done as audio or written quotes, basically just talking about the other games they and their players have moved into.
– Trevor Keane is setting me up a couple of interviews to speak to Esports players about their time in Esports, who they have played for, tournaments they have competed in and why it is important to focus on playing FIFA.
The ePremierLeague
The announcement of this years ePremierLeague could be a huge step for Esports within professional football. All 20 teams from the top flight of English football, are set to take part in the tournament, which will be hosted live on Sky Sports in March. Fans of the clubs all around the world were invited to compete for a place in the competition, with a number of them making it through to the qualifying rounds. The best 16 players following qualification for each, will then battle it out for a place in the finals in London, where they will take on Esports players from the other clubs.
– Interview with Brandon Smith, an official EA and EWorld Cup commentator, who is one of the biggest names and one of the most knowledgeable people on Esports in the UK. (Talking about the EPremier League and what it will mean for the clubs and Esports going forwards). Friday 1st February. Audio interview and quotes to be used in the piece.
Joey Poole, a 19-year-old student who studies Sports Journalism at Northampton University, is currently competing in the qualifiers for a place in the finals of the ePremierLeague. He is a huge Wolverhampton Wanderers fan and it would mean a great deal to him and would really change his life if he were to make it into the London finals and represent his beloved Wolves. Listen to Joey talk about his FIFA journey below.
How far could FIFA Esports go?
As it is still early days for FIFA and professional football clubs competing at the highest level of Esports, it is so far unknown as to how far it could go and mount a challenge against some of the industries top games. However, with the vastly growing interest and the volume of players competing to get into big FIFA tournaments, the future looks bright.
Christian Brindley believes FIFA could challenge at the top level of Esports but states that EA will have to continue investing:
“It has the potential because with the reported 12.3 million player base in 2017 which places it above the CS:GO(11.9m), PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds(6.8m) and StarCraft 2 (2.4m) and is considered a Tier 2 game in 2018. If EA continues to invest in events such as the FUT 19, then I am sure more people will watch, and with more viewership,the stakes will be higher.
Joey Poole is also of the opinion that FIFA is on the up and could begin to battle it out with some of Esports most-watched games soon, but takes a different viewpoint:
“For me, FIFA is on the up. I think it has the potential to break into mainstream media because it is something people already understand. People watch football – they watch the Premier League all the time. The problem with the likes of League of Legends and Counter-Strike is that people don’t understand them if they are pushed into the mainstream media because, obviously, they have never played it.”
He continued: “So, for me, the Esports that will really take off and challenge the top end of viewership, are the Esports that people already know. Like football, with FIFA, Rocket League as well, because that’s basically just football and other things such as UFC. Those have the best opportunity to break into the top levels of viewership in Esports.”
– Brandon Smith’s opinion on where FIFA could go within Esports.
Scunthorpe United Esports
The opportunity to join the world of Esports and create their own team was an opportunity that Scunthorpe United simply couldn’t miss out on.
Within the last few years, Esports has really taken off and is now regarded by many people as the most up and coming sport. Yes – it is a sport. There are players competing all over the world for huge cash prizes, in front of crowds that some athletes – from other traditional sports – could only dream of performing in front of. In many cases, they are earning a lot more money, too. The highest payout for a FIFA tournament was in the FUT Championship 2017 Finals and was valued at $400,000. But what does that have to do with Scunthorpe United – a reasonably small club, in the third tier of English football?
Well, in 2016, Esports made its move into professional football, when West Ham United and Manchester City became the first UK clubs to sign FIFA players, to represent them on the global stage. The players have competed in some of the biggest tournaments all over the world for cash prizes, and have gained online fans for themselves and their clubs along the way. Fast forward over two years and now every single Premier League team has some kind of investment in Esports, alongside various big clubs across Europe, as well as a few in the English Football League – including Scunthorpe, of course.
Why Scunthorpe?
It is no secret that most clubs in the lower leagues of English football struggle to get big crowds through the door, so they have to maximize their attendances by whatever means possible. It is no different for Scunthorpe, an industrial, steel town, in North Lincolnshire, with a population of around 82,000 people – and that’s including the surrounding villages. Although the football club stands proudly within the town, the Iron’s attendances are around 4,000, on an average Saturday afternoon, meaning that their stadium, Glanford Park, is often barely half full.
Scunthorpe announced in September 2018, that they were excited to be setting up an Esports team, and invited fans of the club and fellow gamers to take part in trials to join the side. This is something that has been in the pipeline for a while, though, according to Rob Noble, Head of Marketing, Ticketing and Retail at Scunthorpe:
“I have had my eye on Esports for the last two years or so. It has just been very difficult to ignore, to be honest, with how the industry is going and developing. There has been various bits and pieces that I have listened to, as well as a number of newsletters from the sporting industry, that detail how much the Esports industry is really growing.”
Noble admitted that Esports isn’t really a main priority for the club at the moment in time, as they had to justify an ROI (Return on Investment) for setting up the team. After an extensive period of research at the start of 2018, he began talks with their now Esports partner, Virtual Pro Gaming (VPG), who offered them an easy route into the industry:
“It was about February-time that we started speaking with VPG and they offered a fairly easy route for us into Esports. Before that, I had just been seeing how things were developing and we spoke to a couple of companies who approached us with solutions to facilitate tournaments and that kind of thing. But those companies wanted to charge a fee for it, so the proposal that I had for the board, after working with VPG, basically costed nothing. So, it was basically a route into the industry that didn’t cost us anything.”
Benefits for the club
For a club of relatively low stature, there have to be benefits of creating an Esports team, especially given that Scunthorpe are unable to throw big money at a project such as this, as some elite level sides have done previously. However, the Iron’s primary reason for getting involved with Esports is very similar to most other professional clubs.
The BBC SportPrice of Football study in 2017, revealed that young football fans are being put off by the cost of matchday tickets. The BBC conducted a survey, in which 1,000 18-to-24-year-old fans living in Britain were asked how they engage with football, and 55% of the fans said they had stopped going completely or go to fewer games because it was too expensive. Meanwhile, 61% of the participants said that they engage with the sport through playing either console or computer games, so it’s no surprise that more clubs have now jumped on the Esports train.
In the clip below, Rob Noble talks about how the League One outfit are using Esports as a tool to strengthen their brand and appeal to a younger demographic.
Arron Dellosa, founder and CEO of Virtual Pro Gaming, the Iron’s main Esports partner, believes that having an Esports team helps clubs such as Scunthorpe grow and interact with their fans and the community:
“What I say to clubs, is that it’s good (Esports) for fan interaction and fan engagement because there are a lot of players out there who do want to play for a club, especially in the community. It’s a really good way of helping the fans feel like they are connected to the club.”
He continued: “We help each club to monetize videos on the youtube channel and then also with sponsors. It’s the more the club interacts with people and work on stuff like social media, the more they will get out of it. They will then get higher numbers watching the streams, make more revenue on videos and their own sponsors from the football team, some of them may actually want to get involved with Esports as well.”
Trevor Keane, whose company Sportego also recently partnered up with Scunthorpe, said that Esports is an opportunity for football clubs to extend their brand. Sportego helped Leicester City defender, Christian Fuchs, set up his Esports academy last year, as he became the first professional footballer to have his own side. They have also worked with a number of other professional clubs, as partners and consultants on the best way for them to get involved with the industry.
Here is Trevor Keane talking about the benefits for Scunthorpe of having an Esports team and how they can potentially get more young fans through the door.
The partners
As previously mentioned, Scunthorpe teamed up with Virtual Pro Gaming, the leading virtual football website, to set up their Esports team. VPG specialises in teams competing in an 11v11 format, known as ‘pro clubs’, where 11 FIFA players from one team, take on an opposing 11. The company works with a number of professional clubs, including Queens Park Rangers, Fleetwood Town, Oxford United, and they have plans to soon be working with clubs at the elite level.
Alongside the benefits that there are for Scunthorpe in the pair’s partnership, there are also advantages for VPG, as Arron Dellosa explains in this clip.
League and tournament entries
With it still being early days for Scunthorpe in their Esports venture, they are so far just dipping their toes into tournaments and have currently not been to or held any FIFA events. However, they have already completed their first season in VPG’s online leagues and managed to secure promotion to the Championship North.
The club have now started an academy team, to help bring through some other players and give more people the chance to be part of the clubs Esports journey. Rob Noble detailed the importance of that:
“Alongside the first-team, with VPG they have started an academy team and a weekend league as well. Those two are a bit recreational, with a hope of getting the players towards the 11v11 main team.”
As part of the partnership with Sportego, the Iron agreed a deal to loan two players from Christian Fuchs’ Esports team, who then competed in the qualifiers for this years FIFA eClub World Cup. Rob Noble talked about how this was a good step for the club:
“We went into partnership with them (Sportego) and had an agreement with them that they would loan us two players, to represent Scunthorpe United in the FIFA eClub World Cup. That’s one of the main EA FIFA tournaments, so it’s officially registered. They didn’t make it through, but it was a good experience.”
He added: “I think we, as an Esports club, are kind of learning the industry and how the tournaments fit together, so it was good to be involved with. It’s certainly something from either our own supporter base, as in local Scunthorpe fans, or from our 11v11 team, that we can potentially get our own players to compete in those kinds of tournaments in the future.”
Rob Noble confirmed that they are looking to start taking part in events at some point in the near future, as well as potentially holding tournaments at Glanford Park, which fans could take part in:
“We are looking to take part in events, but at the moment, it’s mostly about using people that aren’t looking for a lot of money. Until we get that financial backing behind it, it’s trying to find someone that might be willing to manage it, someone that has knowledge about Esports and how to go about entering tournaments and which ones to enter. As such, we haven’t got a strategy behind it at the moment, but it’s certainly something that we are looking to develop in the next six months to a year.”
He continued: “We are speaking to VPG about potential tournaments. They have just gone live with one at QPR, where it’s an online competition for the fans and they can enter into the QPR Esports Cup and then the final will be held at the stadium before a game. That’s kind of an avenue that we are hoping to go down as well.”
How the team operates
When people talk about Esports teams, a common misconception is that people just turn on their console and play – but that isn’t the case for the Scunthorpe first-team. There are 17 players registered to represent the side, each of which are contracted for 50 games to the club. They are currently not on a salary, with the team so far being run quite cost-effectively, but in the future, Rob Noble said that they will be looking to offer up prize money if possible.
The team is managed by one of the players, Danny Pierce, who manages the team and has the arduous task of picking the starting line-up, formation and makes sure his side are ready to compete. Then, on game-day, the players come online to do a bit of training, warm up and get ready for the game. Given the Iron’s quick promotion up to the Championship North, they must be doing something right.
Danny Pierce, who is 28-years-old and works full-time in his home city of Liverpool, took on his role in the squad after previously managing a team called Serpico, who also compete within VPG’s leagues. Here he is giving a flavour of what it’s like to be part of a professional football club and what is entailed in his role.
How far could Scunthorpe Esports go?
It is clear that there are potentially some big benefits for football clubs, even those in lower league football, of creating an Esports team. But how far can it really go?
Arron Dellosa believes it would be good to see Scunthorpe Esports get promoted to VPG’s Premier League, where they would come up against some big clubs:
“They have just got promoted to the Championship North, so that’s great for them. I’m sure they will be able to do well at that level and then the sooner they get into the Premier League, they have reached the top level of Pro Clubs. In the top league, we give away currently about £2,000 in prizes and then we do a Champions League with all the teams around the world. There are some really big teams in the Premier League, though, we have got Sporting Lisbon’s official Esports team, Istanbul Basaksehir, QPR and also the company Lenovo have a side.”
He added: “It’s good for clubs to get involved now because once it takes off, these teams will have been working together for a while and they can have success and win a bit of money. It’s all about working as a team in Pro Clubs, so they have a real advantage by joining now, in what will 100% be one of the biggest markets in FIFA.”
Although Esports is relatively new in the Football League, it appears to have taken off at the elite level. The Premier League clubs will now all be competing in the ePremier League tournament in March, where they will each have representatives of their teams battling it out to be crowned the champions. There has been talk of an Esports league to run alongside the Premier League and the Football League.
Rob Noble speaks about where Scunthorpe could go with Esports in the future and how he sees it developing alongside professional football.
Sources:
- Interviewed Trevor Keane of Sportego
- Interviewed Rob Noble, Scunthorpe United
- Interviewed Arron Dellosa of Virtual Pro Gaming
- Interviewed Christian Brindley, an Esports lecturer
- Interviewed Joey Poole
- Interviewed Danny Pierce
