SBJ Esports: HBSE properties in spotlight at LCS finals

Esports will be top of mind for Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment this weekend, as the Prudential Center is playing host to the League of Legends North America (LCS) Summer Finals. The Newark venue, operated by HBSE, was slated to host the event before the COVID shutdown.

Bringing in the LCS finals is part of the venue's strategy of adding popular non-sports like the VMAs and The Eagles Live in Concert to complement Prudential Center's anchor tenant, the NHL's Devils (Seton Hall basketball also plays in the building).

Prudential Center has experience pulling off a big-time esports event. The venue hosted a Rocket League World Championship back in 2019. The one-off event strategy also is appealing for HBSE in attracting young demos from around the Tri-State area, Sean Saadeh, EVP/entertainment at Prudential Center, tells SBJ. “What we bring to the table is that you get all of that big market appeal," he said of the venue's location. "We tend to be accommodating from a price standpoint. There are some nice efficiencies that make it work well financially."

For Riot Games, which organizes and operates the event for its marquee game, a more robust fan-festival area will be part of the 2023 event, including activations by sponsors Red Bull, Verizon, Samsung, Secretlab, Prime Gaming and Govee. Robert Dugan, Riot’s LCS live events lead, noted nine of the 10 LCS franchised teams will have booths at the festival.

Non-endemic brands have scooped up the big slots on the sponsorship roster, including Grubhub returning as presenting partner and Mastercard as presenting the Opening Ceremony on Sunday, noted Dugan. "That’ll be headlined by [Grammy-nominated rapper] Thutmose, which we’re all really excited for,” he said.

Team Liquid co-CEO Steve Arhancet is bullish on the brand engagement opportunities a fan festival can bring. At Liquid's booth, Honda, which is title sponsor for the team , will be present, and the event will partially be a funnel to Liquid+, which is the team's premium content platform for fans. “We've been navigating through current partners who are interested in doing more with us at the event as well as prospective partners who are local and can attend,” Arhancet tells SBJ. -- Hunter Cooke

It's been earnings season for a number of esports- and gaming-related companies. Here is how a few of those publicly traded companies fared on Nasdaq:

FaZe Clan

The popular L.A.-based brand has been facing a host of problems -- a possible sale , potential delisting from Nasdaq , declining sponsorship opportunities, staff layoffs and noise around the potential exit of key personnel . For its Q2 report this week, FaZe said it had $21.23 million in cash left in the coffers, while declaring a net loss of $14.35 million. The loss is in part due to a 37.8% decrease in revenue. Sponsorships decreased by $8.8 million, with the total number of “significant” sponsors down from 10 in Q2 last year to just five now.

Enthusiast Gaming

Enthusiast Gaming, the Canadian digital media company (backed by the owners of the Canucks), which also owns the Vancouver Titans (Overwatch League) and Seattle Surge (Call of Duty League), reported revenue of $42.6 million in Q2, a 17% decrease ($51.1 million in Q2 last year). The company, which specializes in video game journalism, also reported a net loss of $10.2 million in the quarter.

GameSquare

The company behind Complexity Gaming, Code Red Esports and other efforts showed significant revenue growth in Q2, but with a net loss. GameSquare, backed by the ownership of the Cowboys, saw $14.23 million in Q2 revenue, compared to $6.65 million in the same period last year. The company also reported a net loss of $4.09 million compared to $2.52 million. The company has approximately $4.24 million in cash on hand. Cost-cutting measures were implemented in Q2, which saw GameSquare remove around $5 million off the books, and CEO Justin Kenna believes GameSquare could reach profitability in Q4. -- Kevin Hitt

• United Soccer League (USL) partnered with Rival to launch a gaming community, debuting with a tournament using Konami's eFootball game starting Tuesday.

• The Rocket League World Championship saw a mixed bag for viewership around its 12th annual World Championship event in Düsseldorf, Germany, last weekend, notes SBJ's Kevin Hitt.

• Tarik, a Valorant streamer on Twitch, has "proven to be the most popular" channel for the game's competitions -- "so popular that now his streams often bring in more viewers than the official broadcast and has effectively become the face of pro Valorant," writes Forbes.

• Former NFLer Kenny Vaccaro is leasing a 25,500-square-foot warehouse in the "burgeoning St. Elmo district of South Austin, which is set to become the home base of Gamers First, a video game content and esports business that Vaccaro founded and runs as CEO," notes the Austin Business Journal.