Sponsorships and The Future of Professional League of Legends

Disclaimer: This is just my opinion as someone who has been devoted to the game of League of Legends but has yet to break into his own professional career. The subject for today will be sponsorship sales in Esports. 

First and foremost, I would like to discuss some of the recent sponsorships and partnerships happening in Esports as well as some of the things I would like to see happen. Sponsorships happen because there is an opportunity for a brand to monetize the attention they have been receiving by turning that attention to various products and marketing campaigns. With that in mind, Hasbro created a new nerf gun in the form of a Fortnite's gold scar. TSM's sales department saw this as an opportunity and decided to lead the promotional charge. The details of this deal were that TSM would receive a fee from Hasbro in exchange for the use of their competitive Fortnite team. The team would then appear in an international commercial. This sponsorship has my stamp of approval for so many reasons. The commercial, when it inevitably gets in front of the eyes of children, will spark demand like wildfire. All the while, TSM is getting their name in the mainstream media without even having to pay for it. These are the kinds of deals that grow brand awareness and Esports as a whole. 

On the contrary, BMW recently decided to sponsor Cloud 9. While I acknowledge that Esports fans are often more wealthy than your traditional sports fan I still struggle to see the value added to BMW when their cheapest car costs around $40,000. BMW financial analysts have clearly thought this through with more precision than my first impression and so I'm excited to see how this turns out. Maybe there is a demographic at the perfect age for splurging on a nice car? Perhaps they have yet to settle down with a family and so the lack of responsibility leaves them with a little spare change? As far as I'm concerned we'll all be driven in self-driving cars within a couple of decades. Moving on from BMW, Cloud 9 did just secure a sponsorship from AT&T which to me makes perfect sense. AT&T is going to be the official sponsor of a weekly digital show titled, "The Nines." As a long time Cloud 9 fan, I'm excited to see this drop and am hoping for more news on my favorite player, Licorice, the best top in North America.

Alas, I digress. Let us move onto some of the things I would like to see in the near future. A game by the name of Apex Legends was recently released as a sort of mesh between a MOBA and Battle Royale genre. Each character class has 3 main abilities (one passive, one regular and one ultimate) with the goal of the game being to you and your two other teammates to the bitter end outlasting all other 57 opponents. The reason I bring this game up in the first place is because of the brilliant strategy EA Games employed instantly lock up a respectable player base. EA forwent pre-release marketing and in exchange paid Tyler "Ninja" Blevins $1M in order to stream their game on opening day. A couple months into the games release and Apex Legends regularly sees a top 5 most viewed game slot on twitch.tv. This is one of the most unique business strategies I've heard of since the PC Bang in South Korea.

Every video game, regardless of size, is looking for more ways to increase their own player base. So why can't Riot come up with a creative partnership in order to spike demand. Clearly in a game like Apex Legends that spike lead to prolonged success. A game like League of Legends speaks for itself. The cerebral aspects of the MOBA genre are unlike any other mainstream video game. So find the largest online chess communities and the people posting videos on YouTube of themselves solving Sudoku. Partner with the Dendi's and AdmiralBulldog's of DOTA2 in order to get them to play League of Legends for a day. Slowly but surely, League of Legends should have a stranglehold on the market of people playing deep strategy video games. This is important to do now so that 5-10 years from now when this same market of Millennials grow up and begin raising families, Riot still has a leading share. I firmly believe the market size could double within the next 10 years. Looking further into this projection is the ways in which LCS will be monetized and broadcasted. As more and more people begin to watch on a regular basis, how is Riot going to make the jump towards becoming big business? It is easy to imagine Esports growing into something that is just the same as traditional sports. But I believe that's just a mirage of people projecting want they want to see. The truth is human beings are dynamic and the kind that watches Esports is a lot different than that of those who watch traditional sports. I'm not saying their isn't overlap, I'm simply saying the wants and needs are far different. And with different wants and needs come a masterfully different landscape. If you have any thoughts one what that landscape might look like, I would love to hear about it. Feel free to throw me an email and we'll chat.

As always see you later,

Billy Von Arx

  

How To Climb Ranked

Before I begin, I want to explain a bit about my League backstory and what makes me qualified to even talk about League of Legends in the first place. For one, I have a computer and working WiFi (Thanks Mom and Dad). More topical of a fact, however, is that I have spent a large portion of my life inside Summoner's Rift and believe my perspective to be unique enough that it is worth sharing. I hope you agree. 

During seasons 4 and 5, I peaked at Gold II while playing about 20 games per week. While in my early college years, I took a bit of a break only playing during season 7 where I hit low gold. Now, in my senior year of college I play anywhere between 25-30 games per week which sits me nice and pretty at Gold I. I'll keep the blog posted if I ever hit Platinum (edit: I hit Plat 2 about a month later). But barring school work, exercise and going out with my friends, I'm pretty much constantly on League.

Let's jump right into the tips I used most while climbing to the upper echelons of gold and beyond. 

Number 1. Always take responsibility for what happens in game. 

"But Billy... you only make up 1/10th of the champions in any given game." This is true. But it is also the only 10% of the game you have any control over and if you're looking to climb, it isn't going to happen by getting magically matched up with better teammates. Let's put it this way, if you artificially simulated 1000 games of League of Legends in Iron IV, Silver I or Challenger, the matchmaking system is such that if you had an exactly equal impact on the game as the enemy in your respective position -- you would come out of those games having won 500 and lost 500. Give or take a couple games. This isn't to say you can't play better than your enemy and lose or play worse than your enemy and win. I'm just pointing out that in order to climb you must consistently out perform your enemy laner and the other team.

Number 2. Main one champion.

You may have heard this tip before, but stick to one or two main champions. The reason I say this is not to bore the living hell out of you and make you hate the game of League of Legends. Rather, I'm telling you this because if you've ever mastered a champion you know you can kill creeps and fight champions in your sleep. Not having to spend mental energy on these vital aspects of the game allows you to better focus on your wave management, mini-map, other lanes, enemies item builds and the many other advanced concepts you need to learn in order to get better at the game. 

Number 3. Watch streams and YouTube videos of professionals.

One of my favorite sites to learn from is Skill Capped's YouTube channel. While watching these videos take in one or two key tips and try to focus on applying them to your next game. Once you feel like you've learned those skills to the point of unconscious competence, rinse and repeat. I cannot tell you how deep this game truly is and being able to utilize resources from different people is going to help you broaden your own skills much quicker than you could on your own. 

Also if you're anything like me, you'll probably be quite entertained. 

Number 4. Plateaus. 

This is the tough one. We've all been there. Stuck between two divisions. Doomed to a life of constant relegation and promotion that never seems to move the needle too far in any direction. Many players in Bronze refer to this as Elo Hell, but the truth is it happens at all ranks. You hit a string of what seems to be bad teammates mixed with unlucky plays that result in a brutally even mixture of wins and losses. You're not climbing and you don't know why. Well first of all, not all plateaus were made equal. There are often a two main reasons for this type of prolonged invariability within your rank. 

Reason A: You've hit your current maximum rank. Everyone knows their skill level is limited somewhere. Even if you're a challenger player there are parts of the game you haven't perfected and as such, have things to work on. When you get to that point where you're playing your best and still getting beat with any regularity, its time to study. Study the game, study what the players strategy is against you, and study whatever you can in order to improve your game. At this point, only an increase in your base skill level will carry you forward. 

Reason B: You're tilted. You can't get over a bad loss from 10 games ago. All mental injection you've tried to employ in order calm you down has been thrown out the window. You take trades you know you shouldn't and yell at your teammates more than you ever imagined you would. Sure, its easier to lie to yourself and ignore the reality that you aren't playing your best League of Legends. But as life often goes, the easy decision isn't always the right one. How do you fix this? Take a break. Take an extended break. Take such a long break, you have to play a normal match just to see if you still remember how to play the game. Tilting isn't the most fun ever, but playing while tilted is just a waste of your time.

Number 5. Have fun. 

If you aren't enjoying the game you happen to be spending hours at a time playing, its probably time to turn it off. Burnout is a real thing and it happens to us all. After all, we're only human. 

See you next time,

Billy

Hello

To Whom It May Concern:

My name is William Von Arx, but my friends call me Billy. I'm 22 years old and graduating from college in a little over a month. I study Sports Marketing and Management with a minor in Business. Oh and i'm going to work in Esports one day, its just a matter of when and where. And if you didn't assume this already i'm also a gamer. My hobby (borderline obsession) started at an early age with games like Madden and FIFA. Then when my mother allowed it I began playing games like Call of Duty and World of Warcraft. Finally, a game called League of Legends crossed my path and the rest was history. As you can tell by the title of my blog, that's also going to be mostly what I talk about here.

So if that interest you, maybe you should hang a while.

I'm not gonna limit myself to anything specific in regards to League. I might talk strategy one day and then transition into why I think we have one of the most toxic player bases in all of gaming. Or discuss the reasons why female gamers are few and far between before diving into the pivotal parts of Riot's professional scene that make it one of the best out there.

So it begins...

See you next time,

Billy