The eSports industry is expected to maintain a robust compound annual growth rate of generally between 18 and 23% over the next 5 to 10 years.
Now these eSports or organized competitive video gaming competitions are seeing rapid growth due to factors like increasing viewership, live streaming popularity, and sponsorships.
Right now in the world of eSports, competitors are gearing up for the Fortnite Championship Series finals, which is taking place in.
On September 6th and 7th, it's one of the most renowned tournaments in the eSports world, featuring the top 100 players globally and a multi-million dollar prize pool.
Well, joining me to get us caught up on this virtual world is Jordan Lazarus, CEO and founder of Zen Gaming.
Jordan, great to have you on.
Thank you so much for joining me.
So first, tell us a little bit about Zen and also the Fortnite Champions series, or also the local area network.
What's going on?
Yeah, so I own Zen.
Zen is the largest unfunded gaming organization in the world.
We stand on about 45 million followers.
We generate a couple 100 million views every single month from our roster.
Um, Zen is, you know, one of the fastest growing gaming organizations in the world.
We have two of our players, Boltz and Rapid, who will be competing in France for, you know, this tournament next week for a couple million dollars.
And I do want to get an idea of what's going on when it comes to sponsorship as well as partnerships.
So how is the overall eSports industry growing through tie up sponsorships and partnerships with the larger corporations?
Yeah, absolutely.
So we work with brands day in and day out.
So in the last like month or two we've worked with like Amazon, Walmart, NASCAR, Ally Bank, tons of brands that, you know, might not be in gaming or entering the space due to the market and, you know, the reach.
Yeah, so give us an understanding.
I know that there are some campaigns that you had mentioned in the past before and some helpful names.
So walk us through some of these campaigns.
Yeah, so some campaigns are focused directly with products, so like for Sky Tech or Intel or you know whatever PC component it might be, we'll be focusing on promoting a product while other brands like NASCAR and Ally Bank are more focusing on building out their name and building activations in Fortnite where they could have billboards, branding, you know, in front of millions and millions of players.
Yeah, and take us through the Fortnite championship series finals because this is a big deal, right?
And I understand that Zen's taking part in this.
Yeah, absolutely.
So Zen is focused heavily on content, but you know, around a month or two ago we entered the competitive space signing three great players.
Miro, who's a 6 time FNCS winner, he won a million dollars in 2023 in the last LAN.
Um, Boltz and Rapid, who are the other two guys we just signed who qualified for FNCS, these guys are some of the best in the world.
Only 6 spots in the US work, you know, taken up for this tournament, and, you know, 2 of them being bolts and rapids.
So we're really excited to be watching them in the next week.
Yeah, and Jordan, here on the show we cover a lot of crypto and also the role that technology as well as blockchain plays in the financial world.
But what about the world of gaming?
Um So you know, crypto and web 3 and gaming, it all combines.
There's activations day in and day out, um, but it, it varies, you know, on what, what, what the focus is for the campaign.
Um, but here, you know, this, this right now is just solely focused on gaming and, uh, how players could get seen in front of millions of eyeballs.
And finally, before I let you go, the Fortnite Championship series, the countdown is on.
So what do you expect to see from this gathering this year and what makes this year so different?
Um, so we have about the top 100 players, you know, Fortnite's been around for about 78 years, so over time, the advancement in the game has, you know, scaled tremendously.
So we're going in with the focus of winning it.
We're going to be cheering on Bolts and Rapid, hoping to take home first place, and you know it's going to be an exciting next, you know, week or two.
OK, well, we will have to leave it there, but thank you so much for joining us and we look forward to hearing about the outcome.
Thank you so much, Rey.
