So when we have to, as we do, have to pivot, change our course, throw something out and go in the complete opposite direction, we have a diligent framework of why we did what we did, so we know how to course-correct when that has to happen 19 times a day. Halo is not a game that is supported anymore competitively. Welcome to Decoder. Do we have a voice and do we have a say in this conversation? So how do we navigate this situation thereof? And two good examples ESL and BLAST are two league partners, and they are focused on making a top-of-line broadcast and accessible product. Depending on where we are, the first is probably financial. Now 27, LaPointe Jameson is the CEO of Evil Geniuses, a major esports organization, where she's shattering stereotypes and creating an inclusive environment. Some of our athletes are like, I dont want any deals. Ive asked you a lot about places youre increasing costs. And they have an investment portfolio thats low-touch but then, they have a full-on operational acquisition investment portfolio as well. And so that also breeds a negative culture by people who come in and say, Well, like attracts like. And so weve pushed a lot there to ensure we bring in many different people from many different backgrounds to support and bring true optics of who is a gamer and whos in the gaming space. People love floating. Thats amazing. LaPointe Jameson cut her teeth in private equity, turning around "distressed. About. The fandom globally is massive. Google runs this way. Nicole LaPointe Jameson, the 26-year-old chief executive of Evil Geniuses, doesn't come from esports. And you were installed as the CEO to grow the brand. And part of me was not surprised by the reception, but part of me was also very lifted by the amount of people that came out of the woodwork per se, and were like, Weve been here, its amazing to see a voice or someone that looks or can speak for us like us. And that story became more and more frequent. Lets take these components and put this in our playbook, and try this. And that has been an excellent plug-and-play for us, that we didnt realize that would be as lucrative as an entire business line as it has been, and so were going deeper into that area. What should people be looking for? You mentioned franchising. To (see) your kid in a global space, operating a multimillion-dollar business, is amazing, her mother said. But it lacked direction and was struggling financially when she took over two years ago, LaPointe Jameson said. We also care a lot about the voice of our fans and our community, because we are, again, an entertainment product. 2023 Forbes Media LLC. So I had focused in particular with distressed-asset businesses that were ripe for technology disruption for turnaround. So I was glad to be one of the catalysts of forceful disruption in this space. I have no idea. Big thanks to the fabulous and patient @frenzystudio_ for their help with conceptualizing my brand, and @alexaftw for bringing my voice to life! We often broker and source them ourselves too. Using statistics to transform businesses, illuminate investment opportunities, and win card games Those are big bucks. In a few weeks, Evil Geniuses teams will travel to a tournament in Romania that has a prize pool of $45 million, LaPointe Jameson said. And we built a roster exactly opposite of how every other esports team ever in the world has built a roster. I think thats the biggest misnomer in esports space. For veterans of the space, theres a well-deserved chip on their shoulders, and I came in as a triple whammy, right? Evil Geniuses CEO Nicole LaPointe Jameson wanted to emphasize that the new Valorant roster was not put together with diversity in mind. The relationships vary from, were deep in the weeds of how does the competitive structure look and we collaborate very tactically together, to me getting kicked out of boardrooms being called a rent seeker like, theyre far and few in between with relations. And so we take any claims of someone breaking our employment conduct or our harassment policies, very, very seriously. The job wasnt accessible because the infrastructure wasnt there to support it. Why not try to make it geo-affiliated? And so very recently, our pipeline in terms of potential has quadrupled, just in the past two months this year. Filmed at key heritage sites all across Hong Kong, including Tai Kwun, Tang Tsing Lok Ancestral Hall and Kowloon Walled City Park, this documentary showcases Hong Kong's multicultural history. The esports industrys a bit of a misnomer in that it really encompasses two bimodal often intersecting, but frequently not business models. 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. Weve also developed deep collegiate and education platforms how to bridge the world of gaming, how to make gaming accessible to different audiences as well as data analytics and even fantasy embedding products. I dont think anyones done it perfectly yet. They dont run toward asymmetric global competition, right? That consultation pipeline, often rivals, depending on the season or the quarter, rivals our direct sponsorships for our teams. When Nicole LaPointe Jameson became the CEO of the esports organization Evil Geniuses in 2019, she took the helm of a brand that had a well-established presence in the gaming world. But its not always safe; its not always tolerant to me or any other minority by whatever way you slice the pie, she said. I just think its very funny that right now, the relationship between esports teams and the publishers is like if Spalding, the company that makes baseballs, owned the leagues, and eventually Spalding would just announce, Well, now every game requires three baseballs in play at the same time. Right? And building a playbook of how even my team members at EG can operate, understanding, okay, what lanes do we play in and what lanes do we not? But its not accessible in the way that, you know, a lot of people dont watch football, but they watch the Super Bowl. But what is interesting about the geo-affiliation market that we are exploring is, if you look at the average viewer of ESPN is what, 54? But one of the things thats true about pro sports the NBA, baseball, and the NFL they tune their product to make it easy to watch, because the market for playing football is actually very small. Retracing the path of controversial Project Veritas founder James O'Keefe includes many stops in Connecticut. I am excited to announce the launch of www.nicolelapointejameson.com. "Despite the enormous migration to electronic media, neuroscience research shows that paper-based content and ads offer special advantages in connecting with I was a triple first in terms of esports team CEOs: race, gender, and age. Just our main social channels hit over 70 million impressions a month, not through targeted, thats all organic impressions grown over time versus bear with me, Im not a geography expert, I dont know how many people are in Ohio if I were to start an Ohio esports team. AdWeeks 2021 Most Powerful Women in Sports, The Roots 100 Most Influential African Americans in 2020, Sports Business Journal Esports Tech Innovation Award. Hear the latest economic, business and market news, as well as global, national, and local news. Its a very different human rights regime. Nicole LaPointe Jameson does, but she made it so much cooler when she rose to a final-level boss in the industry. There are a lot of incidents of okay, well, if we speak on this, do we also talk about similar happenings in the Middle East, in China, in Northern Africa? And people rally behind those storylines because again, why do you follow a brand that is not geo-affiliated? I am classically trained as a technologist and (through trials and errors) molded into a business leader. There are so many people that dont fit the perceived narrative of who a gamer is, in the gaming community. So how do we show through action? Link/Page Citation CEO, Evil Geniuses. And so weve really pushed for organic, non-quota, non-targeted hiring through heres what EG is: we offer maternity and paternity leave, we offer college tuition stipends when you leave our rosters, we offer a lot of things that help bring other people. Nicole LaPointe Jameson, CEO, Evil Geniuses discuss what's next as the Esports industry evolves with Bloomberg's Jennifer Zabasajja at the Bloomberg Power Pl. For better or for worse, as anyone in my team would tell you, I dont come from a gaming background. There werent a lot of people spending on marketing and advertising in a COVID world. Please only use it for a guidance and Nicole LaPointe Jameson's actual income may vary a lot from the dollar amount shown above. Or, even our community partner, if you view it as, okay, a lot of esports costs go to direct marketing, but we can do good in the world, bring up brand awareness and get customer conversion or fan conversion through community partnerships and goodwill. 00:00 Nicole thanks so much for being here. The market for playing Fortnite is huge. Properties. Because it isnt a one-to-one relationship between games, sales, and esports viewers, and even esports viewers by titles are not the same. Its inherently this de-location. And if you include mobile gaming, more people play games than not. Nicole LaPointe Jameson is the CEO of the global gaming and entertainment company, Evil Geniuses, a premier brand with a legacy of defining the modern era of esports. And so cost is the first big framework we look at. EG used to be the best team in the world for Halo. I had worked for the past five years at an investment firm called PEAK6 Investments, which does a lot of I call it a mixture of private equity meets family office. [8][11], LaPointe Jameson was featured in the 2020 Forbes 30 Under 30 under the games category. What do you mean? 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. Its a fair question to ask because its a little nonlinear. Potentially many times bigger than the market of people who will watch League of Legends. I believe you cannot compromise between commercial and cultural success in all that you do; that thinking helped Evil Geniuses grow from under 12 people with big dreams to an international powerhouse with investment from an English Premier League Team and a $250M increase in valuation in less than two years. Photo via: Nicole LaPointe Jameson RELATED: Evil Geniuses reveals 'final phase' of rebrand and LG UltraGear deal You know, we believe in the team. Most people play games. Does this aid? You own the Lakers you would be great. Psychoactive Therapies Are Coming Back With Millions In Funding Behind Them, Under 30 Lister Bianca Padilla Shares Funding Advice For First-Time Founders, Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information, Limit the Use of My Sensitive Personal Information. Being a game developer is a huge struggle, very expensive, crazy amount of labor, very hard to keep up. That sounds like a lot to deal with. Nicole LaPointe Jameson. Just in two years, right, we are a tech and gaming company that is 52 percent female leadership and management positions. And that means we do elect to not participate in things, but it also means we are selective and very purposeful and thoughtful on what we do choose to participate in. That was definitely one of the scarier elements for me, like, How do I navigate this space? Historically, gaming has been very cliquey. EG, one of the oldest and most recognizable brands in professional gaming, was founded in 1999. We have to manage their balance because unlike just content creators or other esports teams that fully focus on the entertainment side, we blend both. I want to end with where youre increasing revenue. What an amazing time watching the @evilgeniuses guys on stage Plus one of the best meals of my life with @showliana 2,546 followers. Is that true? Esports does not seem like theres a New York City team or a Kansas City team or whatever, right? In May 2019, LaPointe Jameson took over as CEO of storied but fading esports outfit, Evil Geniuses. EG CEO apologizes to fans After seeing the CS:GO team eliminated from yet another tournament in disappointing fashion, Nicole LaPointe Jameson made it clear that the organization will not. Under 30 class of 2019. view profile. A new podcast from The Verge about big ideas and other problems. And at the time that EG [Evil Geniuses] and gaming came on our plate, I was looking from an investment point of view at technology, AR, VR, and gaming companies, looked at a lot of esports teams. And then we also realized we could white-label even more and sell to larger partners, including smaller leagues, other teams, fantasy and gambling sites. Theres an obvious drive for them to make money in that way. It doesnt seem like the game here is, were going to break this thing into parts, extract value, over-leverage it. For those who dont know, whats an esports company? Youre doing a lot of business in China, your players are on the sides of buses, Im told. Why? Im almost ashamed of a lot of the things weve had to do that were firsts in the industry. An analogy I always use is, were like a university, so we have one brand but a bunch of different teams that compete in different games [like Valorant and Dota 2]. And so what pains me about the situation is some of the behavior had been prior to my time, and I hadnt been aware of it. We also do quarterly harassment and good communication skills training through a third-party vendor. We realized we could white-label those tools and sell them direct. That seems like a relationship that needs to be managed very closely. There are parts that feel like what a tech CEO would have to do. @DrJordantsai @EvilGeniuses *and Nicole's dumb IT bands . All of our athletes are full-time employees with health benefits and 401(k) match which again, hopefully, doesnt sound insightful to people on the call, but was a first for many people in the esports industry. 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. Everyone and their mother knows about Fortnite. 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. League of Legends professional gamers, for the esports organization Evil Geniuses, are pictured at a recent competition. Can your players monetize their celebrity independently of you? Become an industry insider. Its the universe of things around it that hopefully add up to enough money to keep the core product alive. Shes being very careful. [Due to an Achilles injury,] I was immobile for a lot of my childhood, so gaming was my social connection. But instead of basketball, football, soccer under one brand, I have Dota, League of Legends, and Counter-Strike. People love esports, but the infrastructure and the money behind it isnt as much. Bloomberg Daybreak, anchored from New York, Boston, Washington DC and San Francisco provides listeners with everything they need to know. If you look at EG we tease that as a first-world problem. People always give me a lot of shit for that too, like, Your merch sucks. And Im like, Im sorry, I dont care.. My shareholders will think Im crazy because this hasnt been done before and its a little avant-garde, but this is the decision we have to make here. Again, there are other teams that have just leaned fully into Twitch, have leaned fully into YouTube. Did you feel like an outsider coming into the role? However, there are times where weve made big bets on teams, like actually entering into a title and doing things a different way. Im always thinking of downside risk and managing upside potential. And I lived in that side of the house, looking at a variety of businesses for them, ranging from the dating industry to flood insurance to haptic technology. Lets talk about your diversity and inclusion efforts here. We havent targeted any women in hiring. And so that comes from a data decision framework around risk-reward potential, level of effort, and costs, almost like an engineering arm, to ensure that theres the why behind decisions. 1 episode totalling 1 hour, 9 minutes. 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. What kind of decisions get made differently? 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. And when some of the athletes can still see, well, if I just live in the EU, if I live in APAC, I dont need to pay taxes, I can just play. So those are your deals, not their deals? 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? I think were going to continue to lift trophies obviously. So our players are celebrities in their own rights and realms and that helps the team. Women arent going to live with men in a house forever; are not going to do that job. Because when you say Fortnite is constantly changing the game, theyre doing it to make it more interesting to play, not more interesting to watch other people play. That is probably the biggest either plus to the space, or thorn in my side, depending on the day and which developer. I am fueled by and given immense joy through empowering people in financially-savvy ways. Prize pool is not a driver for revenue. Can you just take a step back and . Bumpouts in Byram? Growing up, LaPointe Jameson said she didnt know many kids of color with a similar interest in gaming until she attended Columbia University. Nicole LaPointe Jameson, CEO, EVIL GENIUSES. But when I interviewed him for another show, he had just had a player who had gone out, made his deals, and they had wanted a cut and that was a contentious issue, right? Right now theres still some Wild West. And all the different spaces we can sell, for example, might have an esports athlete, but then if theyre very much into fitness or fashion, you can bridge other areas of similar culture more naturally than if they were off on their own or just through gaming. What kind of decision was that for you? Wait, pull that apart. Explain how you became the CEO of Evil Geniuses? https://t.co/dzuLhaRiEu, RT @EvilGeniuses: POV: You're watching us Exhibit our Evil at the MoPoP Thank you for joining us! Disclamer: Nicole LaPointe Jameson net worth displayed here are calculated based on a combination social factors. What work do you do with them? Subscribehere! Walk me through that. However, what is an interesting equalizer is that competitively, right, if were in a round-robin open qualifier tournament [that] takes place in Singapore and its us, backed by institutional investors and sports investors, versus a group of friends from the Philippines who have done nothing but played this game for 10 years, its hard sometimes for us to give a value proposition of why go through all the rigmarole of structure. I wish I had a better and more shiny answer for you, but it definitely resonates. Its us that decides where we support. What type of sponsorships can we sell? Millions of dollars to buy that slot. Join former-Denver Bronco, and Superbowl 50 Champion, Ryan Harris, for a fireside chat with CEO of iconic professional esports organization Evil Geniuses, Nicole LaPointe Jameson. 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