These is the most commonly asked questions when we talk about creating an ecosystem based on the institutional side, more specifically speaking, in my case, the esports.
By "benefits", it is understood most of the time by " financial aid". By "organization", it is understood as "association or federation", or any type of entity related to this legal-economic-administrative category.
First, I must explain that this article is directed to the ecosystem of institutional electronic sports. I will remind the reader several times throughout the article on this point.
The difficult thing to make yourself understand, for those people who already start the dialogue with this type of question is that, first: you must understand the real and practical meaning of the word "sustainable"; second: you have to know first to "fish"; and third, you must ask yourself this question, that is, what you have already benefited to your own community, your region, your ecosystem of electronic sports, the work you do, or should have done so far. Have you already done some esports events, is this your answer? So, you 're far away from creating an institutional ecosystem for electronic sports in your area, and maybe that's one of the reasons you keep asking: "What benefit will I get from being member of a continental, regional, or international electronic sports entity?". In fact, you have barely started the path to having this sport ecosystem created in your region, get ready, therefore, the walk will be long, difficult, suffered and certainly in short steps.
Be sure that you will now understand what benefits you will gain by joining the continental, regional and / or international electronic sports entity after reading this article, at least if you belong to the correct entity, and by "correct" I mean , the one that makes, acts, creates opportunities, unites sides, aggregates values, foments and creates fomentation and opportunities in a free and clear way, and that offers the necessary practical steps and guide to this long journey. Despite everything, including the lifetime of this entity to which it already belongs (if it already belongs to some entity) and by that I mean more older the entity more of the points I am going to mention here, this entity should have done, the lesser it did, the worst it is, and what it actually did for you and your region and the entire esports ecosystem, after reading this article. And again, if for some reason you already belong to any entity but never heard (or read in this case), about anything that is here presented, coming directly from this entity, and it did nothing in that sense for you and your organization, wake up! You are having NOTHING, you are doing nothing, out of nowhere and will certainly have NOTHING as a final result!
It is time to rethink about your membership or continuity in this entity to which you belong, you only have to win, or at least you will start to gain something from all this and your exit from that entity that told you nothing or offered nothing as a guide, about the points discussed here, and maybe you will never ask again the question "What do I have get from this" because you will learn by yourself, to create an environment in which this "question" will have no reason to be ,and it will be the consequence of a job well done, on your part.
But as I said, it is difficult for these people to understand the meaning of "sustainable", that it is not enough to wish to have some kind of sponsorship, investment or any financial support for your initiative, if as I said earlier, the main question is still here: what have you actually done for your esports ecosystem; and it should be answered frankly, directly and honestly, by yourself.
In most cases, as I described in an earlier article entitled "Why sponsor Esports? The End of the Gamer Age," an investment in the sense of sponsorship, always comes more directly to an esports event, not to the institutional entity, or even to the team itself, but here considering the real meaning of the word "sponsorship" and not only the crumbs that are often offered to the parties involved, such as "donations" of keyboards, monitors, chairs and so on (this is all duly justified by an environment in which those involved in the esports themselves created, in order to devalue themselves, by their lack of business maturity and low valuation of the practice that did not have until then any parameters and valuation market metrics, and that was flawed and poorly managed in this environment where the sponsor sees this kind of "sponsorship-alms" as something "normal" to be accepted by those who seek it). I am not generalizing this criticism to the type of "patronage" here, because in some particular cases, it is a fact that chairs, keyboards and monitors, as well as other things are more than welcome and often even a miracle of having been obtained, there are different markets and different situations to be considered. As an example I can give what we had for WESCO in China in November 2018, when we held the WESCO International Esports University Championship, where we had the sponsorship of Coca-Cola, DELL Alienware and UNIGAMER HARDWARE, the latter company, manufacturer of esports chairs, gave fantastic models to us, two different top models in fact, by the dozens of it and totally standardized with colors, logos among other necessary aspects of our part in WESCO.
Going back to the logic of reasoning in this article, sponsorship always comes directly to the event and not the maintenance of operational, human and administrative needs of those involved in the organization (entity) that seeks this investment for themselves.
In addition to the negative factor regarding sponsorship that has been created by the environment itself, but now is changing in large events (and only in events), the biggest factor that the ideal investment does not happen is the lack of operational, administrative and above all lack of organizational structure, lack of a safe environment for that investment to be made. Here when dealing with "environment" safe, we want to specifically address the lack of public, private and operational policies, base, this entities does not clearly provide these information and structure for their esports ecosystem. Of course, potential investors will always want an economically and legally secure environment.
First, as we are dealing with the institutional in this article, we must understand that it is necessary to create the bases of this ecosystem of institutional esports. To create regiments for these entities, statutes, departments such as antidoping, department of health and sports of high performance department, commissions of athletes, commission of arbitration, ethics committee, fiscal council, model of good governance and financial and accounting transparency, board of directors, presidency among many others phases, areas and ways of managing the entity itself and the ecosystem that will define the institutional esports in their region. Even the creation of a higher court of sport and a chamber of commercial dispute resolution, both dedicated to electronic sports.
And for all of this to be feasible, in the very near future in your region, remember that it is necessary to work with government agencies at their various levels (federal, state or district, and municipal), and their politicians , such as: senators and congressmen and state deputies, to create first, laws that recognize electronic sports, as a regular sports category both nationally (and later, as I said, state and municipal), and subsequently create a regulation for this Law, starting a phase of legal, labor and sport safety for practitioners (esports athletes), esports teams and sports clubs, and consequently, for investors (sponsors). You may even propose, once electronic sports are recognized as a regular sporting category in your region, that new tax and investment incentive laws are created, or even that electronic sport is included as a beneficiary in existing Incentive Laws. Other Laws that benefit registered practitioners in your organization, regarding discounts on materials needed for the practice of this sport, such as chairs, computers, video game consoles, keyboards, monitors and so on. There is also the educational incentive that can be created, such as scholarships from colleges and universities.
All of this reminds us once again that we are dealing with institutional electronic sport, not the private one (the latter is free to explore electronic sports as you wish, and certainly always following common sense in the various areas involved).
But for all of this to happen you need to know what to do, when to do it and most of all: how to make it happen, to get it right!
It is for this reason that you need to learn “how to fish”, and not only sit at the table, and eat the fish already prepared. You have to learn how to fish, clean the fish, season it and still know how to eat it, as we say here in Brazil (surely each country will have this popular saying version in its local language).
With the creation of WESCO, World Esports Consortium, and also of PAMESCO (Pan American Confederation of Esports), the desire was precisely this: to create all this operational, administrative, legislative and regulatory ecosystem for the INSTITUCIONAL electronic sport. It was years, indeed until now 5 years, to create this ecosystem, and all its documentary and legal structure, and we are still walking that path.
So that we could offer in a real and truly practical way, the step-by-step so that those entities that seek us and wish to join us, could have for themselves everything we have already created, understood and now put into practice. Hence, we give importance first to "teaching to fish", and NEVER to give the "fish ready to be eaten"!
So, the question "what do I or my organization gain from it?" Or "what benefits will I have?" Must first be done to yourself. What do we within WESCO, PAMESCO and even CBDEL (Brazilian Confederation of Electronic Sports) from which I take the practical experience that I often transfer to PAMESCO, WESCO and even to members of these entities, as I did for the dear friends of PERU, MEXICO, GHANA, JAMAICA to name just a few with whom we work directly, and I still do for so many other entities from so many other countries, with all the care, dedication, devotion and completely FREE), we already know and have is exactly that: safe, sustainable and responsible institutional environment, where ALL the basis of a sports category is being created. And we require this from each member who is part of PAMESCO and WESCO. We logically use the word "require" here, in the sense that we are offering the know-how to create this ecosystem of full institutional electronic sports in their region, and therefore we want to see the practical results applied and being obtained by each of the country Members and/or private companies (in the case of WESCO which accepts both private and non for profit membership).
This all remembering that the intention to create an institutional entity of electronic sports , is really real and that it must, in most cases, create the various areas described above related to this sports base that is being created , not only the esports event, that is, to hold competitions and more competitions of esports, otherwise you will certainly be in the wrong way , of the institutional. You as an institutional entity IS NOT an electronic sports event company (I mean, only an operator of esport events). More than that, you are responsible for having the esports events (since institutional and private ones) under your tutelage with social responsibility beyond only sports responsibility. Competition events will be a consequence of the activities developed by you even before the event itself, it should have a purpose beyond just entertaining and distributing awards to athletes and teams. You will create an environment in which the athlete and the team or club of esports will be valued throughout their career, and here we use the word "career" in a totally concrete , possible and necessary way, as in any other regular sport (such as basketball or soccer).The Legal aspects of benefits of a professional athlete, in the real sense of the word "professional", is legally recognized as an athlete affiliated to your organization, not only by using the "professional" word for someone with extremely unique skills, perfect and of extreme competence. You must create commercial and disciplinary rules to maintain the career of these athletes and their clubs (and / or teams), such as transfer rules, competition rules and athlete substitution windows, and as we have already mentioned, arbitration and disciplinary rules, to exemplify only a very few rules within a broad system of regulations and general and specific rules, if we are to talk only on the Sports Law side and the commercial side. We still the athlete, ethics, and many other sides and aspects. Educational should be considered first, with the inclusion of electronic sports in teaching and learning options in public and private schools, and the educational rules and policies for such inclusion must first be created in the same way as aspects of social inclusion in electronic sports and so many other aspects. In addition, it also has its own educational side of electronic sports, in which disciplines such as coach, referee, athlete, operator, commentator, narrator, programmer among others should be created. This yes is the institutional side, where a complete ecosystem of a sports category is created from its base.
So the answer to the question that is always asked and presented at the beginning of this article is that these are the initial benefits of being part of entities like ours, exposed above. To show you how to fish, we will give you full support with documental and even financial, when possible, supports, as exemplified before for the formation of your institutional esports ecosystem, whether at operational level, either in the administrative, legislative or regulatory, government authorities, legislation, and any other emerging needs that we already know that may exist, assuring our members that everything will be done , within our reach, so that the economic and social benefits are achieved by him, his entity and the esports ecosystem of his region.
Remember that the institutional sport has three components that must be OPERATED separately, however, ADMINISTRATED together: FOMENT (Entertainment), EDUCATIONAL (school and university) and PROFESSIONAL (high performance sport). Besides these three there is also the OLYMPIC MOVEMENT, which must be taken into account, we will deal with this subject in another article.
Above all you must understand that: institutional electronic sport, like any other sport seen in perspective, operated and administered in the institutional sphere (such as basketball, volleyball or soccer), is intended to FORM AND CREATE A BETTER CITIZEN. The esports here is a tool. Have you ever heard that sport should form the citizens? Do not you see that happen in other organizations of other sports already recognized as regular sports, for years? NO? This is a sad reality that we face and experience in our daily lives. We forget and we distort ourselves and we deviate from the straight and ethics values, the final path to education, culture, politics and sport: CITIZEN CREATION, after all, to form the citizen is to provide ourselves, access to public policies worthy of us all, healthy and ethical sporting events , quality education, and with it career and financial benefits guaranteed and fully compatible with a healthy environment where the CITIZEN is rather the largest and only beneficiary of all this, be it the employee or the employer. But we know that this is not true, or at least not practiced. A sad truth. Nothing prevents us from trying to change that path and back to the right path, right?
The issue of transparency of governance, financial transparency of these entities and organizations, must above all be considered. An piece of advice? Do not accept in any way to participate in entities that have damaged the ethics and good governance and transparency in their actions and management. Free the world from corruption, money laundering, abuse of power and so many other harmful actions, brought to us as humanity for so long, and that make us regress or stay stagnant in time and not progress as CITIZENS. Let us be examples of what is correct, clean and constructive, after all we are a new sport category, with new concepts, breaking paradigms and bringing light and new possibilities and means to solve old issues and difficulties not only with technology but with new ways of sustainability and social responsibility. Let's be what we say we are, something new and better!
Above all, you must respect for yourself, your work, and your organization, for this example and self-respect, will be guides to what will be offered to you by investors and the feedback you will have from your affiliates. Do not you ever never sell yourself for a small prices, and destroy an environment that could be correct and solid in all areas, what I mean is NEVER sell yourself way, you have no price, you have more than that, you have VALUE! So WESCO and PAMESCO will hardly provide its members specific offers such as offers to members, related to "free airline tickets" for the events that we promote, except in rare and specific and justified times, we will provide maximum the room and meals and all necessary local infrastructure, because we do not want our members to see these acts as exchange coins, favors, and ways of gaining loyalty and other favors, camouflaged in "benefits," so that these same members can say in their regions that they are the reference in management of electronic sports, because through them a few athletes annually can go to a certain event of esports with paid airfare. This is a vicious cycle of "buying favors" where no one learns to be sustainable, let them alone, do real actions and practices in building the institutional esports ecosystem in their own regions. This brings only more negative image to those same organizations that are seen as inefficient and unnecessary because they do nothing and only boast about something offered once a year and very punctually. I am not here decriminalizing those entities that do so, each one judges his actions on his own account, and they know what they do and the reasons that lead them to do it this way.
And remembering: As I said before, your entity is not a esports event company, what would be the logic of providing and holding esports events and only esports events so far, doing exactly what you already have in the market, without the institutional stamp, if you are proposed to be an institutional entity of esports? None, except to waste your time! For you to have an institutional esports event the steps are many, but possible to be given, remember that you will be building a sports category from its roots.
If it is necessary to have all this institutional stuff, or if we simply follow what we already have? It depends on who asks and depends on who responds. The private is wonderful, it must always exist, and I want it to become bigger and better! I myself have several private companies in distinct areas of electronic sports, and I love the freedom of market and commerce, and the private way. The private companies and its electronic sports events moves those that create and develop not only the franchises, but also the platforms and all the modal ecosystem that we have for the category.
Everything should be free and so the athletes, our main reason for EVERYTHING. They win with both sides and must be FREE to move between the two sides, the private and the institutional. The institutional can and should exist after all we are dealing here with Electronic Sports, and not only Electronic Games, but this subject, as I said before, and the Olympic Movement, are subjects for another article!
