But then also, were a sports team and so our humans, our players, our athletes are also the crux of our decision. This is very much an investment story. How did you get into the industry? We all compete under one banner. Part of the challenge for her? But again, similar to the whole space, its developing, its far and few in between, and a huge component of what esports teams make it or break it in the space is how they navigate the developers. Around both, players, how do you think of your brand on social media? Owning the Lakers is just a lucrative proposition because the Lakers play basketball, and people buy tickets, and youll sell the rights, and you can just do it that way. EG used to be the best team in the world for Halo. And so again, trying to be thoughtful of how we navigate what we participate in, and why, is important. What are resources you have to help if you ever feel uncertain, as well as even staff and management crisis and de-escalation training. We havent targeted any women in hiring. That was definitely one of the scarier elements for me, like, How do I navigate this space? Historically, gaming has been very cliquey. We recently entered a new title called Valorant. And so theres quite a bit of variation in their interests and their passions. So its 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. Those are edtech bucks. Thats true. Gamer. What type of sponsorships can we sell? On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. Again, there are other teams that have just leaned fully into Twitch, have leaned fully into YouTube. + Add or change photo on IMDbPro . So were a bit of a blended form of both of those. When I came into the space, I was nervous. It seems like youre pushing hard in the entire space to make that a mission of your company. She has covered everything from crime and education to health and religion in places, including Colorado, Israel and Morocco. Wow. If you look at EG we tease that as a first-world problem. The predominantly male esports industry has a reputation of toxic, harassing and bullying behavior toward women players. 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 a Chinese company; our fans are there. So on behalf of the "shitty new" LCS team. I dont even come from an entertainment or sports background. As Epic changes the competitive platform so frequently, its hard for us to be proactive. And we lean into the Evil Genius side of our brand identity. Because weve carved our system and infrastructure and networks and who we partner with very carefully, to ensure we can bring in the best of the best, no matter where they come from or what they look like.. Theres an audience lots of people tune in to watch teams play games like League of Legends or Dota 2 but the business models and ecosystem around the industry havent had a ton of success. At that time, esports was becoming popular from a mainstream capital allocation point of view. And heres some good examples, right? It seems like you have some metrics that say this is actually going to help us win more, but it is just a challenging space. Esports Insider sat down with Nicole LaPointe Jameson, CEO of Evil Geniuses, to discuss the need to change the logo, as well as learnings that have been implemented into this "final phase" of the organisation's rebrand. That sounds very interesting. Evil Geniuses boasts sponsorships from Monster Energy, Xfinity, AMD and Twitch among others. Although LaPointe Jameson has loved computer-related activities since she was a child, she said she never anticipated working in the esports industry. I wont shy away: The fact that me coming in as CEO was so big due to just my identity is disappointing its 2021, to be honest but not surprising, especially if you look at the North American esports player, right? So I was very excited for a board seat. And that, by design, the infrastructure of underfunded esports, where you dont have salary, you dont have benefits, parents with kids are not going to do that job, right? Guest on Decoder with Nilay Patel. Nicole E Lapointe, age 48 View Full Report Address:***** Lynores Way, Plano, TX. Just in my 3 years, seeing the changes at EGlike having an over-50% female leadership team, over 50% people of color across the organization on the staff sidehas been really exciting. And thats our biggest revenue stream. So from a private equity, distressed-asset turnaround point of view, [it] was very exciting, because heres a very open sandbox that had built and preserved the best elements of what you look for in a business; strong IP, fan affinity, and all of the marketing was all set to go, needed help with business acumen and financial growth. And so if you irritate half of the country because youre continuing to talk about diversity and inclusion, you did a podcast episode on Black Lives Matter. And then, in particular with sports, sports are traditionally very local. I have no idea. And it was a good wake-up call and call to action of how can we always continue to optimize and do better? We also care a lot about the voice of our fans and our community, because we are, again, an entertainment product. Im watching the thoughts form in her brain before she says them. I have also received honors, including Forbes 30 Under 30, AdWeeks 2021 Most Powerful Women in Sports, The Roots 100 Most Influential African Americans in 2020, Business Insider Transformers, and Sports Business Journal Esports Tech Innovation Award. I started at EG with eight people; we just hit 150 people that fall under that vision as well, and like to support that space, so its been good for us. You own the Lakers you would be great. This is good, its like being in a meeting with you. And thats part of the culture of gaming. Now she is a CEO in the esports industry. Tatiana Flowers was formerly a reporter and fellow with Hearst Connecticut Media Group. And so the infrastructure of Hollywood has sort of raced toward the creator economy. How do you balance that, especially as youre growing? Jump ahead to January 2019, and we were deep in the diligence of Evil Geniuses, which had a wonderful brand but was looking for cash and leadership to best utilize that money. What should people be looking for? She has also stabilized a company. So those are your deals, not their deals? Esports Insidersat down with Nicole LaPointe Jameson, CEO of Evil Geniuses, to discuss the need to change the logo, as well as learnings that have been implemented into this "final phase" of the organisation's rebrand. Its hard everywhere, but this is a culture that has been fairly resistant to it? [9][10] The organization also doubled their staff count and opened new offices in Seattle and Los Angeles within a year of LaPointe Jameson's tenure. For our players, only 30 percent are represented by agents. There are so many people that dont fit the perceived narrative of who a gamer is, in the gaming community. Second of all, these are the peripheral business arms we then use to support. The Forbes 30 Under 30 alumnus is CEO of gaming company Evil Geniuseswhich is kind of what you have to be to make it in the billion-dollar biz. We were one of the first esports teams to have an HR department; we were one of the first esports teams to help build kids camps and summer programs. Within my first 3 weeks on the job, womens organizations and POC in gaming organizations reached out and made sure people knew they were excited to see the work I would do. Listen to Decoder, a show hosted by The Verges Nilay Patel about big ideas and other problems. One thing we love about Riot and them franchising League of Legends is even though you might look at that price tag of a franchise medallion and go, Holy crap, who would spend that money on this? What it shows is, though, we have a voice at the table and how the league is constructed and supported. LaPointe Jameson, who previously worked in private equity, said the bulk of investment that goes into e-sports tends to come from venture capital, or VC, investors. So theres an inherent dynamic between the people who make the games and a company like yours, where youre trying to make something thats great and fun to watch as an entertainment product and theyre trying to make something its easier to participate in. Theres the positive side of your mission, what you support, what you say, what you donate to. I left PEAK6, rolled into Evil Geniuses, and havent looked back since. So outsourcing to people whose focus that is, is excellent. So we really focused on bringing peripheral revenue streams into the business to support what we do but that also dont deprecate from the core product of who we are. Im so excited to have a platform to give a megaphone to people whose voices felt like they werent heard before, even though they are legitimate parties and creators and innovators in the space, but also, professionally, gaming is ubiquitous, and it should be ubiquitous. And Im actually very blessed that I have investors that very much are aligned with the longer-term vision, even when short-term cash is problematic. The Root 100 is our annual list of the most influential African Americans, ages 25 to 45. But also, I think were trying to get smarter around how do we continue to build out data-driven decision-making around esports athletics? So whatever we can do to get the best athletes in our house works for me as a business. Especially, because entering an esports title is not cheap, both from labor, from straight dollars, from infrastructure. LaPointe Jameson said she acquired offices globally, while building international training centers and forging partnerships and contracts for the business. 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 its been surprisingly fast-growing. 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