What's it like to be a part of an Esports organization? What's it like to be a general manager? What's it like to have to talk to investors and famous celebrities that are interested in Esports? Today we're going to cover those topics and we're going to talk to Jake Fyfe, the General Manager of Echo Fox. Welcome Jake. Hey Chad, thanks for having me. No problem. So, Jake, tell us a little bit about Echo Fox. What was the original organizational structure from when you first started Echo Fox. How did it change as you added more Esport for titles? It started with just one team League of Legends. Echo Fox wanted to break into the space with the biggest Esports title in the world. So, they went with League of Legends. Started with just me. Before we even had a team name. We had to get a roster we had two weeks to get a roster. So, we brought on Cappe as our head coach. Then we started the Spring Split as a way to just build out our foundation, get a house, get our branding figured out, get our store, get the necessities. Then we quickly spent in its defining the Fighting Game Space which is very easy to expand to, and then we started looking at other titles like Call of Duty and some counsel games. We started looking at Counter- Strike, we had a Counter-Strike team in 2016. Fast forward a year, we now have a ton of players, that ton of teams, we're across 10 different teams. We have 50 different players. We had our own convention called Foxconn, where we flew up players from all around the world; Japan, Denmark, Korea to come out here and socialize and meet Rick and talk to players who are working in the same banner, but maybe you don't have the opportunity to talk with each other. So, that was really cool. That's awesome. Yeah. Now, with all of this expansion in city games, we have a lot more investors. So, I used to only wear the ground level hat and I had to manage operations and keeping everything alive and coaches happy and players happy. Now, I've hired much more leadership to do the ground level stuff for me. Most of my job now is overseeing that. I'm the conduit for the investors up top. The coaching staff and leadership down bottom and also with the game the publishers like Riot Games. So, my job has shifted a ton throughout the course of two years as we expanded. So, Rick Fox is a very large part of your brand identity, and for those of you who don't know Rick Fox of former professional basketball player who played for the Los Angeles Lakers, and has a little bit of celebrity status going forum. So, what's it like working with him on the Esport side of things, which is a lot different. Working with Rick has been great. I've learned so much from him. He's been a huge mentor for me on challenging the way I viewed sports and what is it like managing an Esports team. I've worked in the industry before Angry Fox for a little bit. But him coming from over 10 years of traditional sports, clashing with the way I viewed Esports has really helped me grow and helped grow the industry too. The lifestyle that our players experience now it's very different. Everything is catered to making sure that they only focus on improving in the game. They don't have to worry about food logistics. We have a chef and a nutritionist. We don't have to worry about sleep. We have the science for it. How to train your body, how to rest, how many hours do you get. All of these things that are standard in traditional sports, he's helped move over to Esports, and he's done so in such a great way that's elevated the space in terms of investors flooding in to not just Angry Fox, all these other teams. A player rights has also evolved as full-time employees with health care and you're actually looking at expanding the life expectancy of a player. Whereas before you look at a 28- year old player and you're like "Wow that guy's washed up." In football I think Peyton Manning is. There some quarterbacks. Tom Brady. Yeah. Those guys are much older. So, Rick has challenged perceptions I've had on the space, which is great. That's awesome. So, you mentioned earlier that Echo Fox just started out with a League of Legends team. So, as you expanded more Esport for titles what made you want to get into those titles. What made you want to get into Fighting Games or Counter- Strike Go or any of these other titles? We started with League of Legends which is very intuitive. You need to have the capital to get into this game, but if you're in there, you're going to have a ton of exposure. League of Legends, the LCS and World Championships right? Those are the biggest viewed Esports titles in the world by far. Right. On Twitch, on TV everything like that. Moving into fighting games it was the natural step. Very low operational costs at the time player salaries were very low, it's very easy to get into. A lot of the top performers didn't have teams. So, that was a natural progression for us. When we start looking at where to move forward from here, you're looking at games like Overwatch who've come up. Very expensive to get into. The franchise slot that it takes to get into that space is very high.Then when you look at the games' other qualities like; how easy is it for an investor to understand the game when you're watching it? Right. How many players are watching it on Twitch? Or is the player base growing? Is it stagnated? Is it going down? So, when you're looking at that formula, it makes it hard for a team to get into Overwatch from that angle; which is why we aren't in. But there are teams that see the potential of Overwatch and believe in it and are good in that space. Another kind of genre that we're looking at is Battle Royale games. Okay. Those games came out in the last year or two that really blew up. Whereas Counter-Strike dominated the first-person shooter space. Battle Royale has come out of left field maybe because Overwatch made FPS is little bit more accessible. But they came out of left field and they blew up. It started with DayZ then H1Z1 now, Punchy and fortnite. Those games are very easy to watch. When I pull it an investor or part of ownership and say, "Hey we should get into this game. Here's what a game looks like." They understand it's a very intuitive came to watch. You get dropped off in it from a plane, you find guns on the floor, and you kill each other and it's Hunger Games. It's very easy for them to see and then put money into it. Right. So, also those games are growing. The player base is growing. There's not even a league yet, but the viewership is still extremely high. So, it's a natural game that we want to look at moving forward to expand into. What are the challenges from going from maybe one Esport to going into multiple different Esports to the point where there's a lot going on on your day to day basis? The biggest challenge of having multiple titles is finding. Leadership that understands that space in that game better than you know me. I know a lot about all the games. I know major tournaments and a DreamHacks. I know those Cons, I know the major competitions. To really understand the space and nowhere every athletes, who's up and coming. Where did they move? Who became a free agent yesterday? How good is this guy? What's his public perception? What do all these players think about him as teammates, as people? That's really hard to get. That's a full-time thing I think. Right. Like you can't understand all thousand League of Legends players intimately, and also know that for fighting game at Overwatch. You're going to be spread too thin. That's just too much. So, the biggest challenge for me was finding those people, hardworking people that understood the game, that were passionate about the game. So, would you encourage the students if they have a particular Esports that they're interested in to just focus on that one and try and learn as much about it as they can, not just a game itself but just the things surrounding it also? I could see how that would help. I'd say, that's also risky you're putting all your eggs in one basket. For example, PUBG right is a space that's still developing. If you became an expert in PUBG, you might not get a job for the next year. But you could be in Overwatch right now or something that's fresh. I would say just follow kind of like. That's a tough question I think, yeah. It's multifaceted. So, it's pretty tough in that regard. Going back to organization like finances and things like that. Usually, when people are students think about Esports and thinking about the professional players. They know that they get player salaries obviously. But what are the finances when it comes to an overall Esports organization? What more is there besides player salaries? I kind of categorize expenses into personnel, which would include salaries and operational costs. So, for personnel, you're looking at player salaries which is huge. Right. What's interesting is before operational costs used to be the most expensive thing like: having a house, having food, that was really expensive, salaries were kind of low. It's recently flipped in the last two years, we now player salaries are ridiculous and personnel costs are huge. As the industry starts becoming more developed, you need to start hiring lawyers, immigration lawyers to make sure these guys and start playing legally in the country and getting paid legally. You're looking at full coaching staff to look at mental wellness with sports psychologists, and also physical wellness. Obviously, marketing team, brand-building, HR, that's new in Esports, right. So, that's the personnel side. The other side is operational costs. So, this is not for every Esports title. Sure. But for the games that you need the players to be local onsite working out of an office. There's cost associated with that. So, we have a chef who takes care of all the meals for us. So, we don't have to really worry. They can cater the meals to each player and how picky they are. They work with our nutritionists to make sure everything's good. The expense of the houses obviously. Echo Fox, we have two houses and one office. So, the players come out of their house and walk to work every day which is nice. How long that walk? It's a 10 minute walk. Not too bad. That's not bad. What's funny is that some of these players can play in like I got to do 10 minutes walk and you'd be surprised everyday there's a player that Uber is hope. Because they can't send that 10 minutes walk, and they actually complain about the Uber, right. Then I have to tell them that in real life, adults have to commute sometimes over an hour to work, and you have to walk 10 minutes in Beverly Hills. Especially in California. Yes. It's unreal. So, the ones that do leave Echo Fox and either join other teams or get into a different industry. There's shock at. A rude awakening? Yes. They get a rude awakening exactly. Yeah, for operational costs to develop that once to put it all together. It's just housing, offices, computers, utilities, Internet, and then the rest is personnel I would say. So, as a general manager, you're involved in the hiring process at Echo Fox, correct? Yeah. So, what are the key qualities that you're looking for when you're trying to hire somebody whether it be somebody who's extremely experienced already in the field or whether it's somebody at a more of a coordinator position whereas brand new fresh out of college? What qualities are you looking for? I think, I look for three qualities. I look for leadership, I looked for passion in the title, and I looked for your initiative. So, Esports gamers in general, they're not the most socially adopt. So, I need good leadership team that is also extremely passionate about the game. Who puts hours into it, who understands this space extremely well. If I asked them, what do you think about this player? They're able to pull up stats from OP.GG from this analytical side compare these two players together immediately. Someone that's constantly on the community boards, where they know player perceptions on the public. What players think about each other, everything like that. I need someone who really understands the space if I'm trying to find someone in a management or leadership position. Then initiative is the big one. I can't tell you how many applications I get where. They send over a resume email and an email cover letter saying, how I have a math degree and I can give you the best League of Legends Analytics you've ever seen. But they can't show me one page of one game that they've studied, which is shocking right. If you can show me your graphic designer that wants to get into Esports or you're a videographer. There's a huge deficiency in people that can fill in the space right now. If you can show me a video that you've done in your application, you're already 99 percent further than anyone else who's applied, which is interesting right. Esports has traditionally been as grass roots, you know networking space where if you knew someone you can get in. Right. That's quickly changing with all these investors and people like great coming in, who expect a certain level of quality. Qualified people are very needed and important right now, and you're going to start seeing a shift from. Hey, we should hire this coach because he's my friend and he helped me out versus hey, this is a coach who is experienced in coaching, he's pursued a certificate on his own here, and here are some thoughts on how he can improve our team. Well, you're hired. So, that's what I'm looking for. So, basically what you're saying is, regardless of whether it's data analytics or coaching or content or anything else, that you encourage the students to fill their portfolios. So, what when they apply to you, you're able to see it firsthand and know what they're actually doing. Exactly. Right. That's awesome. Well, I appreciate you stopping by. Thanks [inaudible]. Thanks for the interview. I hope you guys have enjoyed this perspective into management in Esports.
