Oscar Ugaz: Can football clubs integrate esports (and vice versa)?
Oscar Ugaz is a management consultant with expertise in digital innovation and strategy. He is a former Digital Business Manager at Real Madrid. Under his guidance, the club successfully launched new functions in e-commerce, digital, online video and social media. Now he teaches on the club’s MBA course and in many other business schools.
But, above all, Oscar is a thinker. Someone who builds and tests his own models of revenue-generation in sport. This podcast came about after he posted a diagram analysing how a football club could incorporate esports into their core business (and vice versa). It is something no traditional sports organisation has completely achieved as yet. We explore Oscar’s idea as well as the challenges a highly-successful, long-standing and deeply traditional sport like football will face from the esports industry in the years to come.
TOPICS
The problems surrounding football clubs entering the esports market
The “extreme contortion” that football clubs are trying to pull off
The true threat to football from esports
What lessons have we learned from what has not worked
Will football clubs be prepared to accept a subservient role to games publishers?
Why esports is a media business not a sports business and the players are entertainers, not athletes
Should football clubs enter the esports market while it is cheap even though they might not have a clear strategy?
Why Leagues can take a more strategic approach
Fantasy games rather than sports are the best avenue for esports
The unfair comparison of TV and gaming audiences. They are both “made-up metrics”
What would early scandals in esports do to the brand value of the sport?
Why the biggest problem in esports is the word “sports”
Managing player contracts in esports?
What if football ignores esports?
Is esports better prepared for modern patterns of consumption
The little signals of a potential downturn in TV sports rights
Oscar’s advice to the football industry on embracing esports
Taking the lead from MLB Advanced Media and creating “platforms”