You can do lots of
things with a law degree,” the saying goes—though, lately, law students are
more famous for searching in vain for jobs and accumulating crippling debt than
saving the world. Somewhere in between these extremes is Bryce Blum, who may be
planet Earth’s most dedicated eSports attorney.
Worldwide, eSports are
massively popular—by some metrics, more popular than conventional sports—but
they’re just now beginning to capitalize on their enormous audiences, which cut
across geographic, class, and cultural distinctions. This has raised a number
of interesting legal questions, chiefly: who gets the money, and how can we
attract even more of it?
eSports have changed
what it means to be a sport, gaining widespread coverage on websites like
Twitch and Azubu, as well as conventional networks like ESPN2. They have also
changed the face of the gaming industry, which now favors games that attract
spectators over the older models that did well on sales. With spectators come
speculators, and sites like Unikrn, which takes bets on eSports matches,
further drive eSports towards mainstream acceptance. Advertisers from large
companies are not far behind.
I met with Bryce over
Skype to discuss his work at Unikrn, representing eSports stars, Adderall as a
PED, energy-bar endorsement deals, and a different kind of gaming lifestyle:
So, uh, what exactly do
you do?
I do eSports law. I’m a
founding partner at IME Law, which represents individuals and organizations in
eSports, and I work at Unikrn, a tech startup that offers betting on eSports.
At IME, I represent teams, players, tournament organizers, and various other
parties involved with the industry. For the players, I act kind of as their
agent. I typically offer edits to their endorsement deals and contracts. I rep
clients in every major title except for StarCraft II, including SMITE, HotS,
fighting games, League of Legends, Dota 2, CS:Go, and Call of Duty.
Organizational work tends to be more expansive.
I’m going to ask you a
question whose answer isn’t immediately apparent from looking at the website.
What does Unikrn do?
In a broad sense, we
are an eSports company. We aren’t strictly a “betting company”—in the same
sense that Apple wouldn’t call itself a company that makes computer hardware.
The core of Unikrn’s business is increasing the viewership around eSports and
enhancing their engagement with eSports. There are a lot of long-term plans
associated with that, encompassing both betting and non-betting offerings.
For now, though, our
main business is offering betting on eSports in the same way sportsbooks do for
sports. We offer fixed-odds betting on matches, as well as fixed odds on the
outcome of tournaments, for League of Legends, CS: GO, and Dota 2. We’re
looking to offer all the kinds of bets a typical sportsbook would offer, but
it’s a slowly evolving process. We’re mainly looking to expand in three ways:
more eSports to bet on, more types of bets on these eSports, more markets where
we can offer these bets.
So pretty much the same
as a typical sportsbook?
Yep.
What do you do at
Unikrn?
My titles at Unikrn are
“Director of eSports” and “In-House Counsel.” The majority of work I do is
non-legal. I’m involved with business development and strategy. I’m also
working to unite the industry behind certain standards. eSports as a booming
industry is relatively new. We still need the back-end infrastructure.
For example, I’m
spearheading the competitive-integrity initiative. As betting grows within the
eSports ecosystem, it’s important to be able to say that the results of the
matches are legitimate. All of Unikrn’s transactions are done with Tabcorp, one
of the largest wagering companies in the world. They have algorithms that
red-flag unusual betting activity. But the industry also has to safeguard its
results against DDoSing, scripts that slow down players’ computers, PED’s …
PED’s?
Well, there’s not a lot
of research into it, but anecdotally, there are plenty of people who think
Adderall improves your reaction times.
How’d you get into
eSports law?
I’m a gamer. When I
started playing LoL, around 2010 or 2011, I became aware of the industry. It
would’ve been hard to look at the people who made up the industry, especially
the players, and not say, “These guys needs lawyers.” There were cheating
scandals, incidences of players not getting paid, everything.
When I graduated from
law school, I wrote the first of a white-paper series, forecasting the legal
future of eSports. It took a look at the legal trajectory of baseball,
basketball, and football to explain what might happen to eSports. We put it up
on Reddit and it blew up. I never looked back.
About how much betting
business are you guys doing right now?
I can’t tell you the
exact numbers, but when we launched the beta, in the U.K. and Australia, we hit
our target numbers incredibly quickly and just closed our Series A.
Can you win money from
betting on eSports?
You can. We’ve had
bettors who have done quite well.
What’s the legality of
the entire venture?
Sports betting isn’t
legal in the U.S., so the current product isn’t available in the U.S. That being
said, sports betting is legal in countries throughout the world. Our plan is to
expand to those markets. We’re also far into development on a non-betting
product, which will be legal everywhere.
Doesn’t Pinnacle
already offer eSports betting?
Pinnacle does offer
eSports betting, and so do a few other companies. We differ from them in two
key ways. We’re an eSports company; they’re a massive conglomerate. We want to
be deeply entrenched and be involved in things people in eSports like. There
are so many fun things to do when you can really get to your audience.
On the other hand, you
can look at the smaller eSports companies, many of which do get eSports, but
don’t have the same liquidity or licensing. We want to offer the best of both
worlds.
Sports are a cultural
norm—a lot of people just watch them because everyone else is doing it. Are
eSports moving in that direction?
eSports are still
growing. League of Legends world championship tickets went up yesterday, and
sold out in around 50 seconds. This is standard fare for a Seahawks playoff
game, but people are surprised to learn it happens in LoL, CS, Dota, and other
games, too. My favorite stat is that, in 2014, more people watched the LoL
final than watched the NBA Finals. People spend more time on Twitch than Hulu
or Netflix. There are so many more statistics that show just how much
engagement there is with eSports.
League of Legends is
still the most popular game, but CS: GO is growing, and there are several other
incredibly popular titles.
Of course, this isn’t
exactly new. StarCraft used to be big in Korea, and there was Magic: the
Gathering on ESPN, and CounterStrike on MTV. The viewership has always been
high, but now, monetization is finally catching up, which makes the viewership
more stable, promoting more monetization and more “established” interest. ESPN:
the Magazine had an entire issue on eSports, and there were several pieces in
the New York Times Magazine, as well as the VICE documentary on eSports.
There are all sorts of
other indicators mainstream culture has been lagging but is now catching up.
Sponsorship numbers are continuing to grow. More and more people are starting
to realize that eSports can reach a key advertising demographic: relatively
affluent males, ages 18 to 35. That’s the holy grail for advertisers. And we
all like video games already.
Wouldn’t the growth of
eSports be better served by catering to a broader market than just young rich
dudes? I’m a Magic: the Gathering junkie, and the demographics of competitive
Magic players—18-to-35-year-old men, pretty much exclusively—hugely limit growth.
eSports are already
catering to a broader demographic than Magic. First of all, you need to
understand the worldwide audience for games. Thanks to the proliferation of
smartphones and other platforms, more people are playing games than ever
before. I’m not just talking about Candy Crush, but, shall we say, more nerdy
games, like Clash of Clans—even my girlfriend has a clan, and she’s not your
stereotypical gamer. The number of players will only go up as time goes on.
When you say we’re
targeting gamers, reconceive your notion of what makes a gamer. My
seven-year-old cousin is a gamer. She’s the target audience. Our generation is
the target audience. We grew up playing video games alongside sports. Now,
everyone plays video games. It’s bigger than the guy that plays five hours of
LoL or who goes to the card shop to play MTG every Tuesday. Sixty years from
now, everyone will have grown up with video games.
How are eSports
different from sports in terms of capitalization?
The monetization
avenues for sports and eSports are different. Professional sports are
franchise-based: there are a finite number of teams, who create a draft-based
system, through college or minor leagues, where they can harvest new talent.
They make money from stadiums, tickets, concessions, and TV rights.
eSports are different
in some key ways. There are tickets and concessions, but the teams don’t profit
directly off them, the tournament organizers do. As for TV, we’re still kind of
figuring that out. It’s entirely plausible Riot or ESL or some other major
tournament organizer will enter into an exclusive deal with Twitch or Azubu,
but the teams are unlikely to see that money. On the other hand, the teams have
far less overhead than traditional sports teams. Economically, they can catch
up in a bunch of different ways—advertising, mainly. It’s drastically more
expensive to sponsor the Mariners than it is to sponsor a top LoL team, with
comparable reach. To advertisers, eSports offer access to an unbelievably broad
audience for relatively cheap.
What do eSports stars
endorse?
There are two tiers of
products: endemics and non-endemics. Endemics are everything from software to
keyboards, mice, CPUs, energy drinks, and energy bars. But, though there’s so
much directly relevant stuff, it’s the tip of the iceberg. A brand like
McDonald’s or Gatorade wants to reach anyone. eSports organizations are
sponsored by Nissan, GEICO, and Coke. The smart brands will follow suit.
What would you say to
people who worry eSports aren’t sustainable because the games won’t be around
forever?
What I do know is that
the growth of eSports is bigger than the individual games. One game could lose
popularity and the industry’s popularity would continue to skyrocket.
What I don’t know is
how long an individual eSport will last. Can a game live for 15 years?
Traditionally, no game does, at least not at the highest level of popularity.
eSports create the potential for heightened longevity, but because this
ecosystem is evolving as we speak, we don’t know how exactly long this will
last.
What’s the social
aspect of your job like? Any similarities to Jerry Maguire, Scott Boras, Don
King, Ace Rothstein, et al.?
It depends on which
job. When I’m Bryce the lawyer at IME Law, I go to L.A. or San Francisco every
month and try to make my way to parties at gaming houses or the after-parties
at gaming conventions. I consider many of my clients friends. When I’m at
Unikrn, I have a great time, too—we break to play video games; the atmosphere
is very collegial. But it’s more like a typical tech startup.
Are there other eSports
legal teams?
There are other
attorneys who dub themselves eSports attorneys. They do some eSports work, I’m
sure. How much, it’s hard for me to say.
I’m pretty sure I’m the
only person who maintains a book of business that’s fully self-sustaining and
devoted to eSports. Mine is an eSports-focused business: I’ve done hundreds of
endorsement deals, and fifty-plus contracts for teams.
What’s been changing
lately for the industry and you?
I’m able to focus on
what I really want to focus on. At my old job, there were still all the
ancillary things about being at a big firm. Now I can help develop the
industry. I’m no longer split-focused, which is really nice.
The industry changes
all the time. More non-endemic sponsors are coming to the scene. There have
been major investments in big eSports companies. MTG, a European TV company,
bought a majority stake in ESL. Riot put $30 million into Curse. Vulcun and AlphaDraft
are the FanDuel and DraftKings for eSports, and they got $5 million and $12
million, respectively. Unikrn closed Series A with some pretty incredible
investors, including Mark Cuban, and Binary Capital, which has extensive
experience building major consumer brands like Snapchat, Twitter and Instagram.
Are there Fantasy
eSports?
Yes. You can go bet,
right here in America. They fall under the Fantasy Sports Exemption.
What is the growth of
eSports doing to the rest of the games market?
Games without a
secondary market are less and less popular. Companies don’t put the same kind
of effort into developing them that they used to. They’re still out there and
they still have big followings, but the buzz around the gaming industry is
definitely eSports.
eSports are biggest in
China and Korea. Any thoughts about relocating there?
None whatsoever.
eSports are massive there, but people underestimate how big they are here and
everywhere else.
CML has written for
Gawker among other major websites and maintains a Twitter at @CMLisawesome.
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