For those wondering when esports will be measured by business metrics like profit, loss, and cash flow, as opposed to things like potential valuation and burn rate, Riot Games co-Chair & co-Founder Marc Merrill has a message: those days are within sight. “Riot’s goal is to make esports sustainable,” he said during the second day of the CAA World Congress of Sports. “We’ve historically been investing and spending lots of money in esports. That’s starting to change. Rather than it being always an investment, we’re breaking even or making money now in different territories around the world.” One booming market is China, where Merrill said Riot Games' League of Legends by "many metrics, including players and viewership ... is the largest sport.” Merrill said esports’ marketing potential is underutilized, despite metrics like having more than 100 million active League of Legends players monthly and almost that many streaming last year’s world championship. “Even with the reach and success of esports, it's still one of the most underused advertising opportunities,” Merrill said. “But we still believe we are in the leather-helmet days. Imagine what the esports industry is going to look like in 2050 as technology continues to evolve.”
BUILDING EXPERIENCES AROUND GAMES: Merrill called his company a “reverse Disney.” Merrill: “Disney has films and characters at its core and they build business to extract value from those with theme parks and merchandise. We have games at our core and we build experiences around them to keep people engaged.” Asked what keeps him up at night, Merrill said it is balancing business objectives with the needs of his rabid gamer audience. “Its an interesting organizational challenge to cultivate organizational systems and leaders who are able to manage this complex global business, but who can still relate to what matters most to our players, which is how our decisions as a company will impact them.”
