(Courtesy of ESL)
NEW YORK — According to Craig Levine, esports as it currently stands is “big,” but it should still be bigger, the ESL North America Chief Executive Officer.
On the heels of ESL’s partnership with Facebook around 1,500 hours of exclusive live streaming content, Levine told SportTechie how the global tournament organizer and media company could broaden its footprint and positively impact the growth of esports utilizing new forms of media.
He elaborated specifically on the Rank S program, a “pro level pick-up style playground” where top Counter-Strike: Global Offensive players from North America and Europe within ESL’s subscription-based community (ESEA) will compete on Facebook Live each month for $40,000. Levine, who is an esports veteran given his experience founding Team 3D in the 2000s and his company ESS Agency being acquired by Turtle Entertainment (ESL’s parent company) in 2014, equated it to fans watching an NBA summer league scrimmage that would include listen-in segments for fans to get a deeper dive into the conversation around the game.
“We’re going to create a different type of access to have a more fun, practice playground if you will, with these top celebrity players,” he said of the content.
Added Levine about Rank S, which he called “less buttoned-up” than traditional broadcasts: “It’s unique and exclusive (to Facebook). You won’t be getting that anywhere else. For the Rank S program, what’ll be really cool is I think you’ll see some of the player personalities come through a little bit more. Is this guy a big trash talker? Are these players on opposite teams actually very friendly with each other? If there’s a roster shuffle, did they say something in a game that foreshadows something?”
The 1,500 exclusive hours on Facebook Live, across six languages, will combine with another 4,000-plus centered around tournament programming and shoulder content to appear in the future months.
While Levine declined to discuss the economics of the new relationship, he did say that monetization around Facebook is “something that’s still being rolled out.”
“It’ll be a maturing partnership, and the business model around it will develop, but today, a big part of it is providing access and broadening that base of fans, first and foremost,” he said.
Though the Rank S program will be a main feature of the Facebook partnership, it won’t be the only content appearing on the platform, as other non-exclusive events such as ESL One and Intel Extreme Masters will be broadcast, too.
“There’s a lot of appetite for a more intimate, personal conversation and fans receiving more access to the events,” said Levine of one of the drivers for executing the deal.
When asked about how esports and ESL fans on Facebook are different than those on Twitter, Twitch, YouTube and others — leading to the wider distribution of content — Levine said ESL didn’t have “enough data points to draw concrete conclusions at this point.” Currently, ESL is still testing its own “hypotheses” as it continues to fill the white space around live competitions with shoulder programming like player human interest stories, game highlights, recaps and other content fit for social, according to Levine.
In a new report from PwC, the professional services firm cited Twitter’s partnership with ESL and DreamHack as one of the contributors to the rise of esports, which will now nearly hit $300 million in revenues within the U.S. in 2021.
“Our audience is very endemic and native to Twitch. We’ve been successful in moving some of that audience to a YouTube experience and our CS: GO Pro League. We’ve seen great success with them as a partner,” Levine said. “Again, I think Twitter is the natural form for a lot of social activity. If you look at some of the social followings of the top players, they’re very engaged through Twitter. It’s very early in the partnership, but we’re working to create that live viewing experience. It’s still something we’re figuring out.”
The various social networks, including the likes of Reddit and Snapchat, will help “fuel the fandom” around esports, explained Levine. As he alluded to, there isn’t a concrete roadmap in place quite yet for the social direction of ESL, how it prioritizes content and where it may be best suited to be.
For now, it’s still establishing a unique voice on the different platforms and discovering how to best communicate with those fans. At the end of the day, Twitch may be the entry point into gaming and esports for a majority of fans, as he said, but additional social channels will provide other ways to find ESL content.
“For us, we’re still trying to grow our reach and relevance by looking to different platforms,” Levine said. “What we’ve learned, is on different platforms, fans have different consuming habits. The way people watch esports today on Twitch is different than how someone might watch content on YouTube or watch something on Facebook and Twitter.
“It’s sort of a mix of exclusive and blanket, if you will, ESL content of how I think we’re finding success with these platforms and ultimately, trying to create content that’s going to be most appropriate for the consumption habit of fans through them.”
