The rise, fall and resonance of ESPN Esports

In the years since, because the esports business continued its ascent, ESPN lined practically each step, incomes awards and recognition for its protection from a demanding viewers that’s typically cautious of newcomers. Over 5 years, the location received two Esports Awards for its protection. Two completely different writers took dwelling esports journalist of the yr.

In 2020, with conventional sports activities shuttered by the covid-19 pandemic and with gaming and esports gaining mainstream consideration unmatched in its comparatively younger historical past, ESPN pulled the plug, closing down the devoted digital esports operation and reducing ties with practically all of the division’s employees.

The transfer despatched shock waves via the business, although not all events interpreted the ripples the identical means. Some noticed the information as a setback within the push for mainstream acceptance. Some recommended it was as a result of the “Worldwide Leader in Sports” didn’t recognize or perceive the gaming viewers. Skeptics of esports’ well-liked (and monetary) potential pointed to it as proof of a bubble, suggesting that esports was not offering the worth its advocates promised. Why, in any case, would ESPN shutter one thing with a lot quick enchantment, and holding such promise for the long run?

In interviews with present and former ESPN staff with ties to the division from its origin to its finish, the choice seems to have stemmed from a spread of elements, together with each the influence of the pandemic on the standard sports activities usually broadcast on ESPN’s household of networks, in addition to the esports group’s lack of ability to generate an viewers on par with the various different sports activities lined on ESPN.com.

It was not the long run imagined by those that had labored to launch and elevate the division.

One day in 2015, Dan Kaufman walked into the workplace of then ESPN.com and ESPN The Magazine editor in chief Chad Millman and noticed the names of a number of protection areas scrawled on a whiteboard. Among them had been day by day fantasy sports activities, playing — and esports.

Kaufman — on the time a senior deputy editor operating ESPN Insider, the web site’s premium content material providing — requested who was in cost of esports. Millman stated nobody, and requested if he needed it, Kaufman recalled.

A 35-year veteran of sports activities media, Kaufman was already overseeing fantasy sports activities and playing, however esports could be a completely new enterprise. “Just so you know,” Kaufman advised Millman, “I don’t know anything about it.”

A pair weeks later, Millman known as Kaufman and stated esports protection would go to him. Kaufman requested for a timeline and particulars. “Go figure it out,” Millman advised him.

“A lot of people at that time were saying, ‘We’re going to be the ESPN of esports,’” Kaufman stated, recalling a phrase Activision CEO Bobby Kotick used after the corporate acquired Major League Gaming. “Well, actually no, we are going to be the ESPN of esports. That’s what we do.”

While ESPN had dabbled in gaming to various diploma, together with broadcasting some occasions and integrating gaming segments into some of its programing within the early 2000s, it had by no means carried out something on this scale. Moreover, Kaufman didn’t have many factors of comparability amongst ESPN’s media friends to assist information the imaginative and prescient.

“l knew it was at least a five year project,” Kaufman stated. “I wanted to be responsible and keep it lean — no one in the mainstream media was trying to do what we were doing.”

Many at ESPN had been unfamiliar with esports when Kaufman started to assemble the division, giving him an added problem. To assist bridge that hole, he relied on a typical expertise — dwell competitors.

In researching for the challenge, Kaufman attended The International in 2015, the championship event for the sport “Dota 2” that yearly carries a prize pool ranging into the tens of hundreds of thousands. Kaufman stated it was the very best sporting occasion he went to in 2015. That occasion’s show of fandom, he stated, would function the idea of his argument for esports protection internally.

“Once you saw how fans reacted to it [esports matches], that’s a language everyone in sports speaks,” he stated. “I think people [at ESPN] really grasped it.”

In the fall of 2015, Kaufman posted his first job supply for a senior editor. It netted over 1,000 resumes. However, after reviewing them, he realized he was approaching yet one more novel problem.

“I didn’t know how to evaluate these resumes,” he stated, having been used to candidates with conventional sports activities reporting backgrounds. “There was none of that in esports. I saw, ‘I’m 23 and have eight years of experience.’ You had to learn to think about it a little differently. … We also needed people who were going to be personalities for us within the company.”

He adjusted by counting on the important thing attributed he relied on to guage expertise.

“You’re looking for drive, for people who can be coached and taught,” he additionally targeted intensely on writing expertise and private networks.

It led him to 2 of ESPN’s early esports hires: Jacob Wolf, employed simply after the launch at 19 years outdated, and Tyler Erzberger.

“They knew everybody and everybody knew them,” Kaufman stated. “You wouldn’t have that in the NFL.”

After Wolf’s arrival, ESPN’s esports division consisted of 4 devoted staffers, together with two reporters and two editors, along with Kaufman and Pierre Becquey who oversaw the division along with others. It additionally briefly included reporter Rod “Slasher” Breslau and a spread of contributing freelancers.

Shortly after the launch, Millman was quoted in the Los Angeles Times in regards to the rationale for ESPN’s dedication to the division, saying “the story line [of esports] was so compelling that we decided there was no reason we shouldn’t be doing this on a daily basis with the same rigor we cover the National League Football or other sports.”

The arrival of ESPN Esports on Jan. 14, 2016 served as a poignant second within the evolution of media protection for professional online game competitions, each for the general public and additionally different reporters trying into protecting the business. Ben Fischer, a workers author at Sports Business Daily who was the primary esports beat reporter on the outlet, stated he remembers that point as being a “land rush” scenario for sports activities media.

“There’s always trendy new areas that catch a little fire, X Games, extreme sports, everyone’s always looking for the next big thing, and from 2016 the next big thing was esports for sure,” Fischer stated. “It was useful because ESPN gave me a crash course into esports … [and was] an outlet I implicitly trusted about the games and what’s going on on the screen.”

David Higdon, head of global esports communications at Riot Games noted the impact ESPN’s involvement had for esports leagues and organizations. “Esports benefited from that affiliation in a pretty big way, including in the debate about being a sport,” Higdon stated. “Opinions and reports from ESPN Esports made it into proposals and decks for VCs [venture capitalists] and the like.”

There was benefit for ESPN too, as it aimed to pull new readers to its brand.

Ryan Garfat, who joined ESPN Esports in the summer of 2016 as an editor, said he first become aware of esports while covering the X Games in the summer of 2014 and noticed a crowd gathering around a Call of Duty tournament.

“It was treated as a sideshow, but there were people waiting outside in 100 degree heat because they could not get into the tent,” he said, adding that he saw Matt “Nadeshot” Haag — now head of esports organization 100 Thieves — being swarmed like a rock star. “This was one of the few untapped audiences we could embrace.”

ESPN’s clout also benefited those it now employed. Wolf, who was hired in April 2016, recalled having a very small audience and more limited resources at his previous outlet, Dot Esports, even as he had built a burgeoning reputation for breaking esports news.

“I instantly gained access to both financial resources and then also people resources that Dot Esports did not have,” Wolf stated, noting that he went from about 5,000 Twitter followers to nearly 90,000 followers now. “Going to events multiple times per month, speaking with investigative editors, working with ‘Outside The Lines’ … I also got to produce for TV and write for the magazine.

“I’d be remiss not to say it gave me a boost in visibility. A lot of it is because I busted my [rear], but I got into rooms because ESPN was on my business cards.”

ESPN’s resources helped enable Wolf to lead the industry in breaking esports signing stories, as well as propel him and his colleagues to produce a full suite of daily match coverage, features, videos, TV shows, social media content and more.

Esports was given further coverage on ESPN’s broadcast networks from 2016 on, with airings of tournaments and league play of Madden NFL, fighting games, “Rocket League,”” League of Legends,” Overwatch League, “Hearthstone,” “StarCraft II,” “Heroes of the Storm” and “Apex Legends.”

Despite the spike in esports content, the department faced the same challenge as all others at ESPN, fighting for space on a crowded website. Still, the esports stories broke through with prominent placement from time to time.

Kaufman said esports content would get fair consideration at the daily ESPN.com editorial meeting, even though there was a learning curve for other staff members.

“The competition for real estate on ESPN’s homepage is intense,” he said. “We had to be intentional about the kinds of stories we’d pitch. … We couldn’t go in everyday and pitch, we had to wait for the good stuff. And with that, you’d get a good hearing.”

Until he left to become editorial director at The Athletic in May 2018, Kaufman said ESPN Esports was making good progress on metrics, including on social media. He said there was also an understanding that they were appealing to a new audience for ESPN and were operating as outsiders both at ESPN and among endemic media within esports.

Garfat, who oversaw the esports department after Kaufman’s departure, said the team deviated only slightly from the course set originally, adding coverage of “Fortnite” and other, broader video game topics that were not hardcore esports. According to Garfat, those moves came in response to audience interest and ESPN management, who felt they were slow to “Fortnite” as a “cultural moment” after the stream featuring streamer Tyler “Ninja” Blevins, Drake and others went viral in 2018. Blevins would later become the first gamer featured on the cover of ESPN The Magazine.

By the end of 2019, both Kaufman and Garfat had exited ESPN, with Garfat taking a position as the senior vice president of business operations with Kroenke Sports and Entertainment. Millman had left in 2017 to start sports betting analysis site The Action Network.

“We felt like we were making progress,” Kaufman said of the department’s standing at the time of his departure. “We were trying to do a whole lot of things that were new. I was extraordinarily proud of the company embrace of esports at that time.”

“I felt the house was in really good order,” Garfat said, citing their coverage of League of Legends Worlds and the Fortnite World Cup in 2019. “We had great momentum after the previous round of layoffs and there was no indication that anything would change when I left, though one title sponsor had not renewed.”

The coming months would see esports achieve an even higher profile both around the world and at ESPN, when the covid-19 pandemic forced the cancellation of numerous traditional sports leagues and events. Suddenly, airtime slots reserved for Major League Baseball or the NBA were available, and in some instances replaced by broadcasts of “NBA 2K” tournaments or “Overwatch League.”

While the pandemic further elevated esports and gaming content, it crippled that of traditional sports, the backbone of ESPN. The company, which had already endured several rounds of layoffs in recent years, was feeling the squeeze from the loss of live sports programming, and the correlated loss of advertising revenue. Another round of cuts was needed.

Over the years, ESPN invested in its esports team by growing it to 11 dedicated employees in both editorial and video at its peak, adding Emily Rand and Arda Ocal to augment video and written coverage. In terms of size, the department was comparable to the resources ESPN.com devoted to covering MMA. ESPN also gave them dedicated studio space at both its Bristol, Conn., headquarters and its Los Angeles offices. Several people familiar with ESPN’s budget estimated the company was spending about $1.5 million annually to operate the esports department.

Though many staffers announced they had been laid off earlier in the month, on November 11, ESPN announced its decision to dismantle its esports department. A company spokesperson said ESPN would continue to air esports competitions and cover the industry via assets in other editorial groups. Wolf, Erzberger and six of their colleagues in the esports department were either laid off or told their contracts would not be renewed. The esports team was among 300 employees laid off by ESPN in early November.

In comments made to The Post and on at least two podcasts, Wolf criticized the move as shortsighted and said ESPN was not interested in building new audiences long-term, opting to focus on the traditional sports audience they already had.

Wolf noted challenges faced by the department, with someone in their esports editorial pipeline changing roles every year, bringing a lack of consistency to his work. He also said the unique culture and desires of esports fans were not taken into account, with the company trying to put esports into an “ESPN box” without acknowledging that esports audiences are different and consume content differently than other sports fans.

“I think a lot of those things were not acknowledged or acted upon. I felt we kept kind of hitting a wall,” he said, “I think that arrogance and hubris was part of their downfall.”

In response to Wolf’s claims, which he made as part of an announcement that he’d rejoined Dot Esports, ESPN issued a statement on January 3.

“Esports on ESPN.com was by far our lowest trafficked section and was among the most resourced, relative to traffic and compared to other sections,” the statement read. “Both considerations were factored into the difficult decisions we had to make as a result of the pandemic’s impact on our business. We are still committed to esports as an opportunity to expand our audience, and we’ll continue to do so through programming and coverage from the broader team for major events and breaking news.”

ESPN aired over 20 esports events last year, including a dedicated “Esports Day.” Its most recent airing of esports was Rocket League during the X Games at the end of January. The esports subsection is still viewable on ESPN.com but was removed from the site’s navigation bar last week. The featured story, written by Wolf, carries a time stamp from 96 days ago. The top news story in the headline stack is from November.

In the closure of ESPN Esports, journalist Ben Fischer sees a correction to the frequently touted, rocket-like trajectory of the esports industry.

“It just really draws a line under esports’ inability to live up to the hype at the time I was covering the beat,” Fischer said. “That’s not to say it won’t make a return or there’s not a viable business. There’s a strong group of fans — it has just fallen off the screen as a buzzy thing traditional sports people talk about.”

Top tier esports leagues projected confidence in reaction to the closure, pointing to their own metrics for growth as well as the fact that all ESPN Esports writers found new jobs and will continue to cover the industry.

“It had a significant impact during its four year run,” Riot’s David Higdon said, adding that ESPN’s former staffers will help bolster other outlets and now provide veteran, insider perspectives on how to provide solid coverage. “They took talented people and made them more talented.”

Asked how he felt about the closure, Kaufman spoke of the young reporters he employed.

“It was a great team of hard-working people, they grew to be among the best in the business,” he stated. “Some would be successful anywhere, and they chose to do esports.”