How to connect young adults to local esports organizations?

Hello all! In this post, I wanted to share an idea I had and see if anyone of you agree with what my thoughts are or have ideas of your own!

There seems to be an endless stream of new talent coming up every single year. Each year you see more and more young adults striving to make it in professional gaming with not many clear paths to their ultimate goal. We are starting to see better integration into the school systems through high school and colleges adopting esports teams, but how can we connect them to their local esport organizations?

My idea was an organization academy. Structured around players or org members engaging with and coaching those with hopes to make it to the pro scene. Maybe you start a team with 3 of your friends and realize you have a great gun skill, but do not understand the correct way to play a game of Search and Destroy. The academy program could allow you to work hands-on with your local organizations, and build more brand loyalty than the current programs in place such as ProGuides.

There are multiple ways to make this program beneficial to all parties involved. For the organizations, this could be a new partnership opportunity for sponsoring individual teams or events, membership sales, tickets for live events, all generating a new revenue stream. This could be as scalable as your organization is comfortable with, or sees the most value in. From the community standpoint, this gives an opportunity to build upon your gaming skills, new strategies for playing an objective, and an in-depth analysis of your preferred game.

This would also be huge from a brand loyalty perspective. From the aspiring gamers, they would have the opportunity to meet with their own local organization's members and build a connection beyond what would come from watching streams and interacting through social media. This type of local engagement creates brand loyalty in the involved individuals and makes a positive impact on the lives of the kids and adults in the community.

From the organization's perspective, they gain brand loyalty by engaging with their local community. This could also open up pro players to realize they may like coaching and take that on as a career post-playing.

I would love to hear any and all ideas or opinions on this! Please feel free to comment on the article or the post on which you found this article! I appreciate your engagement and time spent reading this!

Adam Donarski | Linkedin
Pre-Sell Representative, PepsiCo
ESTA Member