ONE Esports is Asia’s largest championship esports series featuring some of the biggest teams and gamers in the industry. As a joint venture between ONE Championship and Dentsu, ONE Esports considers itself to be the home of ‘Esports Heroes’ and places great emphasis on it’s values of integrity, humility, honour, respect, courage, discipline and compassion.
In this exclusive interview, Carlos Alimurung, CEO of ONE Esports shares his insights over the company’s mission and his ambitions, being a lifelong gamer, differences and similarities between esports and traditional sports, the reasons for ONE Esports’ success and using data to deliver a better fan experience.
Q 1) As CEO of one of the biggest and most influential esports media companies in Southeast Asia, what are your ambitions to grow and scale the business further and expand esports globally? What is the mission of One Esports and how are you trying to fulfil that objective?
Our mission is to share and celebrate the stories of esports heroes who ignite the world with strength, hope, dreams, and inspiration. ONE Esports is powered by a robust content flywheel, which includes world-class events, esports news on https://www.oneesports.gg/, social media, long-form and short-video, and data and analytics. This enables us to deliver on our mission and super serve esports fans around the world.
Some brands have difficulty understanding this complex and young community of fans who have a low tolerance for poorly thought-out engagements. They struggle not only with authenticity and engagement, but also with showing the esports community their commitment to making esports huge.
ONE Esports helps partners build an authentic relationship with esports fans, and our turnkey solution enables them to showcase their commitment by engaging fans across the entire fan experience.
Q 2) You have previously worked at Battlefy, an online esports competition platform. What is it about the esports industry that makes you passionate and do you consider yourself a gamer?
I am a lifelong gamer, and the opportunity to apply my experience to help grow esports globally and especially tell the stories of esports athletes and heroes in Asia was irresistible.
I’m a big fan of Magic the Gathering. It’s a complicated game that is convenient to play, because it is cross-platform between PC and mobile. Moreover, the game has a deep lore and story, which I enjoy exploring and delving into. They just released the Kamigawa Neon Dynasty set, and the setting is a futuristic Japanese science fiction world with ninjas and samurai with an anime aesthetic. Who doesn’t love ninjas and samurai?!
Q 3) What would you say are the differences and similarities between esports and traditional sports? What are your views on esports being the future of sports and entertainment?
I spend half my time explaining to people that esports is just like sports, and the other half of my time explaining that esports is very different from traditional stick and ball sports. Much like traditional sports, esports athletes are contracted to exclusively compete for a particular team. They endure gruelling practice and training to earn their place on the team to compete for huge prize pools, which can go up to millions of dollars.
In terms of viewership numbers, we hosted the ONE Esports Dota 2 Singapore Major in April last year, which generated 274M views over 105 hours of broadcast across 9 days. The Major was the third most watched Dota 2 Major in history. We also recently held the Mobile Legends: Bang Bang Women’s Invitational (MWI). According to Esports Charts, the event is one of the largest events in the history of women’s esports, setting a new viewership record.
The average age of an esports fan is a lot younger than the average age of traditional sports fans, and the audience size continues to grow by the day. Our data shows that the average age of a ONE Esports fan is 29 years old. If you contrast that with the NBA, which has one of the youngest demos within traditional stick and balls sports, then you will discover that the average age of fans who view games on TV is 37 years old. This is why so many media experts argue that esports is the future of sports and entertainment.
Q 4) What would you say is the reason behind One Esports’ success over the years?
What sets ONE Esports apart from other esports organisations is our commitment to our mission to share and celebrate the stories of esports heroes who ignite the world with hope, strength, dreams, and inspiration.
The most successful brands who have engaged in esports have taken a holistic approach and activated across multiple channels, experiences, and content. When fans engage with a brand consistently across multiple activations and platforms, it becomes a long-term opportunity to create awareness and genuine relationships.
The global pandemic not only accelerated the growth of esports, but also changed the psychology of many marketers, many of whom saw this period as an opportunity to pilot new initiatives. ONE Esports was recognised as a high-quality partner who would wisely and effectively apply partners’ investment to help them connect with the esports community.
ONE Esports is one of the few companies in the industry that can help brands engage and connect with the esports community across several fan touchpoints. We help our partners build a sincere relationship with esports fans. We start with listening to what our partners want to achieve. We then apply our domain expertise to identify and execute the right activations to deliver those goals. These activations range from live esports events, live talk shows, documentaries, written and video content, and social engagements.
For example, we recently announced a new partnership with Samsung that will see ONE Esports develop an exclusive ONE Esports mobile app for Samsung devices in Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam, to be launched later this year. The app will be the go-to source for esports news and content in Southeast Asia and will seamlessly integrate into the ONE Esports media ecosystem. It will feature news and content syndicated from ONE Esports’ website, https://www.oneesports.gg/, and it will be localised in 5 different languages. Samsung users will also enjoy exclusive videos and rewards. The app will be made available in the Samsung Galaxy Store and Google Play Store for over-the-air download exclusively on Samsung mobile devices this year.
Q 5) How is One Esports using data for fan engagement to deliver a better experience?
Data is at the heart of ONE Esports. It shapes everything that we do and drives the company’s key decisions. Our data-driven approach to marketing and business strategy has been fundamental to our fast growth and our ability to deliver results for our partners.
We have an in-house Analytics and Insights team that publishes proprietary esports reports. So far, we have completed proprietary reports on the OTT landscape, female esports fans, and most recently, about Chinese esports fans, which contains a summary of our high-level learnings about esports fans in China based on a large-scale quantitative research study.
We recently announced a partnership with HSBC, one of the world’s largest international banking and financial services organisations, where ONE will conduct proprietary research to understand the Southeast Asian esports community’s preferences and behaviours related to esports fans’ financial services decisions.
