Envy CEO: How Envy Gaming will expand with $40m investment Envy\/Adam RymerNorth American esports organization Envy Gaming made a big announcement in March 2021, unveiling that they had raised $40 million in investment from TV company Gray Television. Typically, at the stage Envy are at, companies can go one of two ways. Following a Series C round, they tend to either prepare to become publicly listed by bolstering all of their current initiatives or they undergo mass growth through acquisitions and developing new business arms. With franchises in Call of Duty League and Overwatch League, and a long legacy in place with the core brand of Envy Gaming, the question of where the company plans to go became very interesting following this investment. I had a bunch of theories of where Envy could go next. With teams like Astralis and Guild having already gone public, and teams like TSM utilizing supplementary businesses to generate revenue, the possibilities seemed endless. Instead of creating what would be essentially fan-fiction through reckless speculation, I thought it\u2019d be best to speak to Envy CEO Adam Rymer to find out what\u2019s actually on the horizon. The next era of Envy This investment doesn\u2019t necessarily mark the beginning of a new phase for Envy, you could build a solid case that they\u2019re already in the middle of growth. Ever since Rymer was brought in as CEO as long-time leader Mike \u2018Hastr0\u2019 Rufail stepped down to become chief gaming officer, Envy have made some interesting moves. Read More: Envy Gaming raises $40m investment – \u201cWe\u2019re in an exciting phase of esports growth,\u201d Rymer said. \u201cWe\u2019re starting to see some companies really emerge as bigger presences across the board in esports, gaming, and lifestyle. This investment gives us a real opportunity to be in that conversation. For us, it\u2019s staying true to who we are as Envy, our history of competing and success, and making sure that if something\u2019s not working on the competitive side we make the changes and address it. We\u2019re still 100% dedicated to that, but that\u2019s what gives us the foundation to really build a bigger engagement platform with our audience.\u201d Falling in line with many other organizations, they\u2019ve since made big strides in the arena of content creation and influence. The organization has signed chess prodigies the Botez sisters, former Call of Duty world champion Tyler \u2018TeeP\u2019 Polchow, TikToker Sebas Beron, and Warzone streamer BobbyPoff. They even welcomed music superstar Post Malone as an investor in August 2020. While competition has always been important to Envy, and it remains as such, they\u2019ve realised that there are additional methods of building a brand, engaging existing fans, and acquiring new ones. They\u2019ve been fleshing out this pillar of their business. \u201cWe are in a place where fans of esports are fans of a bunch of different teams, players, and streamers,\u201d Rymer said. \u201cWe\u2019re trying to work on how Envy ties into that by bringing on more content creators who can support what we\u2019re doing on the gaming side. We have some announcements coming that are related to casual players where Envy can take a bigger role in bringing those audiences together and bringing the gaming audience to a bigger set of brands and areas outside of just the core competitive space. \u201cOne of the things that we are in full agreement with Gray is taking some risks and trying something. If it fails, then fail quickly and look at the things that work and go after them in a bigger way. That\u2019s essentially what we\u2019re after now. I don\u2019t think any of us have really considered the next investment phase or any of those strategies just yet, the focus is on what are we doing tomorrow with the resources that we have to grow the business and revenues.\u201d Beyond capital, what can Gray bring to Envy? They\u2019re a legacy broadcast company with roots in traditional forms of media. Envy are a new-age media company, for all intents and purposes, that exists mainly in digital mediums. On the surface, that may be a difficult question to answer. \u201cThey have a different set of skills than we do from an audience development perspective, but there are also areas where there\u2019s a lot of great overlap,\u201d he explained. \u201cThey are a local broadcaster and there is a lot of local sponsorship and advertising deals there. We\u2019re looking forward to working together with them on monetizing locally in an amazing way. They also have phenomenal production capabilities. \u201cYou can probably identify a whole lot of things that would make watching any of these games a lot more exciting and fun and interactive and participatory, especially for non-endemic audiences. How do you make Call of Duty exciting for someone who\u2019s never played it before? How do you make Overwatch exciting? We\u2019re hoping that we can work together on figuring some of those things out but we\u2019re not forcing anything to happen together with them right now.\u201d Gathering data and making acquisitions While the core pillars for many esports organizations include competition, content, and merchandise, Envy, Team Liquid, and Cloud9 have started building out another pillar that may soon be standard across the industry. Fan engagement initiatives such as Liquid+ and EnvyUS hope to reward avid supporters with unique perks in exchange for a small subscription fee. As well as making these fans feel truly part of a community, it helps the orgs to better understand their interests, demographics, and much more. This, in theory, can help to inform future decisions with success being less of a gamble. \u201cIt is an extremely important part of the future of our business,\u201d Rymer told me. \u201cKnowing who our fans are, especially when they are distributed across multiple social channels, is a critical piece of how an organization stays relevant in the future. One of the things I strongly believe in is \u2018don\u2019t forsake perfect for the sake of the good.\u2019 So, for me, it was just getting something out there, start learning, start talking to the people who sign up, and start figuring out how we can be better at it. \u201cSo far that\u2019s been working great. We\u2019ve been iterating and we\u2019ve got a roadmap now of how to make that a much more engaging, exciting, and integrated opportunity that goes across all of our brands, our creators, and especially our live events. When live events start to come back is when you\u2019ll start to see those kinds of membership programs become a lot more useful because we\u2019re ready to offer some really nice features and benefits to members.\u201d It\u2019s easy to see these initiatives as a play to monetize fans, but it runs deeper. When a user signs up, they have to give some basic information \u2014 information that can be crucial in understanding demographics and how best to serve those who truly support you. Envy are making a play to establish themselves as synonymous with esports in Texas but that doesn\u2019t mean they\u2019re neglecting to get to know their international fans. \u201cIt\u2019s not getting data for the sake of data,\u201d he answered. \u201cIt\u2019s all about value exchange. My goal is to recognize that, unlike other sports, our fans are all interacting with us digitally. So if I\u2019m not figuring out how to get to know them where they are then I\u2019m just sitting there passively, waiting for somebody to tap me on the shoulder and say \u2018Notice me and do something for me.\u2019 \u201cIf I send you an email about every single thing my teams are doing, you\u2019re going to zone out extremely quickly. But if you tell me that you\u2019re a huge fan of the Dallas Empire and that\u2019s it, I\u2019ll make sure that that\u2019s what you\u2019re seeing. There might be ways for you to get involved in other aspects of the org, but I\u2019m not going to force you to do that.\u201d In search of avenues of esports that can actually generate profit \u2014 it\u2019s not so easy making that happen strictly from competition \u2014 organizations such as FaZe Clan and 100 Thieves are focusing intently on personality-based content and selling merchandise. Read More: 100 Thieves launch NFTs – Hastr0, a competitor in Call of Duty himself many years ago, made his stance on this approach known on Twitter in January 2021 by throwing some side-eye at these so-called \u201choodie selling orgs.\u201d The past few months of Envy\u2019s development suggests they too see the benefits in investing in revenue streams outside of competing, so I reminded Rymer of this situation and asked whether his org can now be considered a \u2018hoodie org.\u2019 \u201cOf course, why not want to be everything? If you look at what\u2019s happened over the last year we\u2019ve really started to expand our content business and the creators that we\u2019re working with,\u201d he said. \u201cI think 100 Thieves is onto something and has done a phenomenal job with being able to engage and activate their fan base. \u201cIf you\u2019re an esports org, you have to be in esports. And if you\u2019re going to be in esports, you have to be in the areas that people are excited about. We\u2019ll all have our unique spins on what our brand means and what it represents and what offerings we have for our fans. Look, it\u2019s all in jest and now is not the time for anyone to be criticizing another org\u2019s business model. There\u2019s so much room to continue to grow and find new opportunities. If anything, I\u2019m looking forward to ways that we can work together.\u201d Acquisitions aren\u2019t uncommon once a company has closed their Series C round, so naturally I thought about all of the potential avenues Envy could go down in this regard. Could they establish a talent management arm like TSM, perhaps they want more franchise slots, or is now the time to get into software and infrastructure? Envy famously missed out on securing one of the 10 long-term partnership slots in Riot Games\u2019 North American competition, the LCS, and it\u2019s rumored that more slots will be up for grabs in the coming years, so is a re-application possible? Rymer discussed all of these potential moves. Read More: Schalke 04 considering selling LEC slot – \u201cWhen we look to invest in something, one of our big avenues is how can Envy help grow that business,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m not looking to be a venture capitalist and just say \u2018Hey, there\u2019s an awesome thing out there that I can make a billion dollars on.\u2019 We\u2019re looking for things that can help the development of esports as a whole and what you\u2019ll find is most of the things that we\u2019re interested in investing in, I would love nothing more than to have other organizations invest in the same thing. How can I help develop companies that are supporting what all the organizations are trying to do? \u201cWe\u2019re lucky because we\u2019re in a position where we see a lot of these opportunities. All things are on the table but it\u2019s whether we can accelerate the growth and incubate something in a way that a traditional Silicon Valley venture capitalist couldn\u2019t. We look at the data, we look at the audience size, we look at our local audience and try to understand if people in Texas going to be excited about watching this and being part of it. It\u2019s not just about clout for us. We\u2019re going to keep watching what the cost is of being in those leagues, how player salaries and audiences are increasing, and what the likelihood is of actually succeeding within those leagues. It\u2019s an area that we are definitely interested in.\u201d Looking ahead In 2019, Envy was valued at $170m according to Forbes. In 2020, they didn\u2019t make the list despite the 10th-ranked organization being valued at $150m. That suggests the organization has dropped off massively \u2014 or that they didn\u2019t want to play ball with the publication and are happy to keep working without the hype that that list often generates. Read More: TikTok dominates Forbes 30 under 30 list – \u201cWe believe in having our actions speak for us in this regard,\u201d Rymer said of\u2019s Envy\u2019s exclusion from last year\u2019s list. \u201cRaising the money from Gray \u2014 who is a sophisticated investor and was able to look under the hood and see some of the things that we\u2019re working on \u2014 implies that there are some things that are happening coming down the pipe which have real meaningful asset value attached. We\u2019re a little unique. \u201cNot every team can say that they\u2019ve got as core of a location-based strategy as we do. We\u2019re very focused in Texas. There are different gaming platforms, different esports organizations, different games and publishers and monetization strategies. Who\u2019s right? Who\u2019s wrong? I don\u2019t know for sure. We\u2019ll see what happens over the next couple of years but we feel good about where we are and we feel good about who we\u2019re competing against. To be able to continuously go up against some of these other guys on a regular basis is what\u2019s going to create fandom for esports in a way that hasn\u2019t really existed as strongly before.\u201d Envy are intent on forging a new path for themselves, forgoing being just a trophy-hunting organization and more a fully-fledged media outfit. Their recent signings, and the significant $40m investment, suggests Rymer has plenty up his sleeves for 2021 and beyond.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Envy CEO: How Envy Gaming will expand with $40m investment Envy\/Adam RymerNorth American esports organization Envy Gaming made a big announcement in March 2021, unveiling that they had raised $40 million in investment from TV company Gray Television. Typically, at the stage Envy are at, companies can go one of two ways. Following a Series […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-66449","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66449","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66449"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66449\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}