The following transcript has been edited for length and readability. Listen to the entire discussion here on The Broadband Bunch. The Broadband Bunch is sponsored by ETI Software.
Kaleigh:
Welcome to the Broadband Bunch. My name is Kaleigh Cox. I am an ambassador of the Broadband Bunch, as well as an occasional co-host here. It’s been a while since I’ve been on an episode, and I’m so excited to be back today for a very exciting discussion with Robert Gilbert and Matt Snyder. Robert Gilbert is the COO of DxTEL, and they are launching a new platform called Fiber Gaming Network, and Matt Snyder is with Mainstage Gaming. I’m going to start, kick us off here by just having each of them introduce themselves, and then we’ll dive right into today’s discussion around eSports, gaming, and how internet providers can leverage those trends in their market. Robert, let’s start with you. Can you introduce yourself, please?
Robert:
Sure. Thanks, Kaleigh, and thanks to the Broadband Bunch for having me. My name’s Robert Gilbert. As Kaleigh mentioned, I am the co-founder and COO of DxTEL. We’ve been providing marketing services to fiber providers for over five years now, and we specialize in not only helping with marketing but also building platforms for the industry to solve challenges that we see a lot of them face.
Kaleigh:
In full disclosure, I do work with Robert. I am vice president of business development at DxTEL, so I’m helping with the launch of the Fiber Gaming Network. I’ve also helped with Fiber Homes and Harper, a couple of our other platforms. I will say there has been a unique level of excitement and response to this concept, and so very excited about this discussion today. Matt, could you introduce yourself as well?
Matthew:
Absolutely. As Kaleigh mentioned earlier, my name is Matthew Snyder and I’m the founder and CEO of Mainstage. Mainstage, we’re a startup building a data and event platform to help organizations engage gamers that already exist inside their communities, and happy to be working with Robert and Kaleigh on creating Fiber Gaming Network.
Kaleigh:
Wonderful. Thank you both so much for being here and for your time today. Robert, let’s just start at a high level. Why did you decide to try to connect internet providers with gamers? What’s important about this market?
Robert:
Sure. We were not alone in thinking about this. Increasingly, we kept hearing from clients as well as seeing at various events throughout the year with the FBA and NTCA, we saw more and more interest around eSports and this kind of need in the industry and this desire for fiber providers to really get to know and engage with the gamers in their community. We have heard numbers ranging from anywhere from 30% to 50% of on-network subscribers having gaming devices in their households. When you start looking at key audiences, there are a lot of tools that do a lot to engage streamers and people who work from home and smart device homeowners. It just seemed like a logical thing that, hey, gamers are not only a big percentage in terms of the total number of subscribers, but when it comes to fiber internet, they are probably the most knowledgeable about the advantages of a fiber connection.
Our providers, they’re also great prospects in terms of people who are more likely to buy higher-speed service tiers. All of those things combined, really, kind of helped us when we were looking around for, again, ways that we could help our providers around the country build something around gaming that would help them engage that audience, seem like a logical choice.
Kaleigh:
I know just from seeing some presentations in the industry in the last year or so, I’ve only really seen two big ways to engage gamers so far. One has been running campaigns directed at them, so using messaging around gaming in your advertising, and then also actually running eSports tournaments. Matt, can you tell us a little bit more about what it takes to run a one-time tournament? I know some ISPs have done that, which is really cool that they’re forerunners in that. But for those who maybe haven’t done that, what does it typically cost in time and effort to do a one-off event in a community?
Matthew:
Okay, so I guess there are two parts to this. One part is an online event, and then I guess the other part is hosting an in-person event. We’ll start with the in-person event since that’s kind of been practiced throughout the industry by a couple of providers. For an in-person event, the lift is significantly greater simply because there’s a lot of hardware involved, and finding a venue, ideally with a fiber connection, as well as the electrical needs to be able to run a lot of gaming hardware. I’d say ballpark costs for an in-person event are between 25 and 40 grand, assuming that it’s going to be transitioned into an annual event, like a lot of the providers that are really in gaming are practicing. Then there’s the online aspect, which is significantly cheaper, as you can imagine. Full service with professional casters on multiple channels and branded hitting your local subscribers, the full cost is around $10,000, and that includes prizing and everything to help draw a large local audience to a quality online experience.
Kaleigh:
Then you guys at Mainstage, and the reason I know Robert was drawn to you, is you started coming up with a different approach working with schools and parks and rec departments that didn’t have the budget for an event like you just described. Can you tell us a little bit more about your approach and how it’s unique and a bit more scalable?
Matthew:
Yeah. We start online in I guess a vertical strategy to where we’ve worked and spun up a high school league and high school students got to play online. Our plan in scaling this is once you have enough people playing online, it makes transitioning to in-person and local events just so much more sustainable. With anything you do, Kaleigh, especially as a marketing expert, you got to kind of run experiments before you scale a campaign. Those online events that we’ve hosted with schools, colleges, parks and recs departments, we’ve worked with the US Boxing Federation, the Charlotte Hornets, and a variety of other organizations throughout primarily the sports space and education space. But hosting online events has allowed us to reduce the risk of moving to an in-person event, increased the odds of successful turnout, and things of that nature.
Kaleigh:
Yeah, that makes great sense, and as a marketer, I appreciate you putting it in those terms and relating it back to marketing. Robert, you saw this, you saw what Matt was doing, what Mainstage was doing, and thought that that might be a good fit for internet providers. Can you tell us a little bit more about that conversation and what you envision for the Fiber Gaming Network?
Robert:
Sure. Yeah, and to me, the key piece that Matt said was the price point. Even if you’re going to host a local eSports event virtually, you’re looking at a $10,000 investment and then it goes up from there for in-person. I’ve been in this industry long enough and certainly have been in sales long enough to know that the majority of providers, if you tell them, “Hey, you’re going to make a $30,000 investment in something that you’ve never done before and you’re not sure if it’s going to be successful,” that’s not for the faint of heart. Initially learning that and hearing what it really took to launch, for the few providers that have done it, those tournaments, then we felt like there had to be a better way to allow smaller providers or really anyone in the space to kind of wade in, to dip their toe into eSports, and as Matt said, start building that community, engaging with them, get to know, number one, if you have a critical mass of gamers in your community, and number two, what games are they playing? That’s key.
The genesis was, “Okay, how can we create this scalable model where any provider could bring something of value, start getting to know the gamers in their community, and scale it up to hopefully host a local event.” With that in mind, I have told many people this, I’m 46 with two young children and I’m not a gamer. I haven’t been a gamer since college, just not in that world, so it was not something I felt comfortable jumping into. Luckily through the wonders of LinkedIn, I was introduced to Mainstage and Matt and his partners and reached out to him with a cold email and basically said, “Hey, I love what y’all are doing with schools and parks and rec, and I think there’s a great opportunity in the fiber internet space.” And here we are today.
Kaleigh:
I know that in that you had a lot of conversations with Matt, with ISPs who have run tournaments, ISPs who have thought about running tournaments, and you’ve kind of landed on this initial iteration of the Fiber Gaming Network. Can you talk about what that is? What is the global series? What exactly will gamers get out of this, and how will internet providers offer it? What does that look like?
Robert:
Sure. The Fiber Gaming Network, it’s meant to, as opposed to a one-off event in the community, FGN’S global series is really meant to be a year-round value add that our Fiber Gaming Network partners can give to their subscribers for free. The global series, it’s going to be pretty impressive. We’re looking at weekly tournaments with prize purses of $1,500 apiece. This is going to be rotating games, so we’re going to start out with a few months of pre-program starting in April, but then we’re going to obviously pick games based on the popularity that we’re seeing. We’re looking at weekly tournaments with $1,500 prize purses with all the actions streamed live with professional casters.
We have weekly community game nights that are also going to be streamed live with $1,000 apiece in giveaways, and quarterly super tournaments with $4,500 in prizes. All told, over the course of a year, we’re looking at 600-plus hours of live broadcast streams. Matt can speak to this more, but in terms of a slate of tournaments and in terms of prize money giveaways, and the amount of streaming, it’s a pretty big deal in terms of the gaming community. When you look at that and what we’re able to do with the Fiber Gaming Network, which will allow the fiber providers to give access to this for free to their subscribers, we’re pretty excited.
Kaleigh:
Yeah, let’s talk about that, Matt. I am not a gamer either, so I have been learning a lot about this myself as we’ve gone. Matt, can you explain what Twitch is, for those… Maybe I’m not the only person, maybe there are some other listeners who aren’t gamers themselves but are interested in this. Can you explain the difference between gaming and then streaming content around gaming and why that’s so important to kind of offer both as an ISP and why we incorporated both in the Fiber Gaming Network?
Matthew:
Yes, I will do my absolute best, Kaleigh. I, of course, grew up a gamer and started a gaming company. You don’t realize how little time is left for gaming once you get busy. But playing video games, I think that’s the familiar aspect. Now when it comes to competing, you’re competing online against other people around the country or world from their homes. Then we get into Twitch, so Twitch is a live streaming platform that primarily focuses on and has the biggest audience in gaming. Like you go to YouTube and you watch videos on demand, and we’re familiar with live content, so your news broadcasts, it’s capturing the video games being played and then broadcasting them live.
In terms of the gamer experience, we’ll start with the prize pools. $1,500 is not small in this space at all. I’d say the average prize pool throughout the big tournament websites that exist now, I’d say the average prize pool maybe $50, and that’s honestly being pretty gracious. So $1,500, that’s a lot for extremely competitive gamers, especially with the rural and regional fiber providers. A lot of people haven’t heard of eSports yet, so this could be a massive opportunity that can potentially even lead to college scholarships. Whether it’s in-state tuition waivers or full rides, there are about 400 universities right now giving out scholarships to gamers and content creators to help boost their university’s varsity eSports teams.
Kaleigh:
You’re saying that a gamer who learns about the Fiber Gaming Network, either on their own or through an internet provider, that they’ll be able to participate in tournaments with cash prizes that are much higher than they’ve seen elsewhere. They’ll be able to potentially leverage or discover leverage opportunities to work with maybe college recruiters or coaches. Then there’s also the streaming element being brought into Fiber Gaming Networks. Is that right? Additional content to watch as a gamer?
Matthew:
Absolutely, and it’ll be featuring the actual gamers from these internet subscribers, so all the content we create and put on from our tournaments or our community events playing among us in Fortnite, it will actually be these subscribers. They’ll be able, in terms of content and the value for the internet service provider. We’re going to use American football as our example. You’re watching the Packers and the Vikings, and you see the little Green Bay logo next to the team and the Vikings next to the team as well. In aspects of really unique branding and really unique engagement opportunities on a stream, we’ll say, we get Robert to play a video game with me and Robert will be represented with the icon of his service provider, and for me locally, Comporium. I’ll have the little C next to my name. So it’s a unique way to not only represent your local community, but for fiber providers to have some representation from their subscribers, so I think it’s personally really cool. I’m excited to play some games again, I’m allowed to.
Kaleigh:
It’s for work, so you’re allowed to do it.
Matthew:
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it would look so bad if one of the Fiber Gaming Network’s staff people won something. Luckily I’m not very good.
Kaleigh:
Yes, we should probably plan to keep you from being able to win those prizes. Robert, I am curious, as we get this going and launch it, is this something that you see being a revenue generator for internet providers, or how do you think providers will use this in their markets?
Robert:
Sure, yeah, there are a couple of different ways, beyond just being able to start engaging with the gamers that are already subscribers. We do give our partners the option to use it more as an upsell tool. They may say, “Hey, you know what? I want to provide this, but I want to provide it only to our customers that are in the one gig service tier or 500 meg, so it’s a way to add value to those higher service tiers and use it as an upsell opportunity. There’s also, I don’t think we mentioned this, but fiber gaming network.com, it’s going to be promoted in the gaming community. As Matt mentioned, these prize purses are a pretty big deal and weekly tournaments and anyone around the country is going to be able to log on and register and participate in these events. However, there is a… what’s a normal fee, a $20 registration fee to play in the tournaments unless you are a subscriber from one of our partner ISPs.
What that means for them is, let’s say they get gamers in their market to hear about it via their newsletter, and they sign up. Obviously, they’re going to tell their friends, the word is going to get around locally about the Fiber Gaming Network and other gamers who are not subscribers are going to want to play. They can come onto our website, they can sign up for an account, and then they can again see all of the tournaments they can play in and they will have to pay a fee. However, when they sign up for their account and provide us with their name, address, and contact information, if it’s within one of our partners’ service territories, we will share that information with the providers to let them know, “Hey, you have 10 people that are in your community that aren’t your subscribers who have signed up for accounts.” So that way it becomes a lead gen opportunity for them as well.
Kaleigh:
I love that, so lots of opportunities here to use it creatively with prospects or with customers. I’m excited to see how internet providers use that. Matt, I want to ask you as we help ISPs engage this audience maybe for the first time, and maybe the marketers themselves aren’t gamers or aren’t familiar with this market, do you have any just general advice about marketing to gamers? I think my perspective has generally been that they care a lot about the authenticity of the brands that they follow, and at the same time, their internet connection’s really important. They’re really likely to be a word-of-mouth customer that shares their experience with others. In general, are there any dos or don’ts that you would recommend ISP marketers keep in mind when speaking to this group?
Matthew:
Of course. First and foremost, if you sign up for Fiber Gaming Network, you’re going to be getting a beautiful media kit to help, so that’s a great way to start. But getting down to it really though, as somebody who enjoys marketing and kind of has a little bit of background in it, marketing can stretch truths, per se, and I think the gaming demographic gamers is just one demographic you want to be absolutely overly honest with. Do not lie to them. Because it’s an extremely critical demographic too. I mean, if you want to take the risk of lying, be prepared to get called out. Gamers are also kind of edgy and controversial stuff, so a Twitter presence I think is probably one of the best places to start. Then also making partnerships. All internet service providers have a local high school and a local college with a great chance of them having eSports or gaming clubs and entities.
I think collaborative campaigns are a phenomenal way to add credibility to your brand when reaching that demographic, especially for the first time. You look at the marketing stats, different reports say 88% of gamers are more likely to make a purchase online rather than go to a store, and 70% of them are more likely to spend on a quality product versus a cheaper one of the same item. With that, and them seeing an entity that’s in gaming like a college or a local pro team or even a trading card shop that runs Pokemon events, just any endemic brand to it, will be happy to partner and help build that credibility without a lot of the guesswork of, “Oh man, am I going to say the right thing? Am I going to say the wrong thing?” Everyone has those people that complain or try to drag them through the Twitterverse. Don’t be afraid to talk back. Talk a little smack. It’s fun and it’s honestly respected in this space.
Kaleigh:
I love that. There is so much gold in there, Matt. Thank you. Lots of good tips there. One thing that really jumped out at me, was when you talked about building local partnerships with schools, stores, and things like that. That’s a great thing to do in the next year for ISPs because they could use the global series of Fiber Gaming Networks to kind of, in a very easy way, immediately step into the space, immediately offer value at these weekly tournaments with cash prizes that they’re not having to organize or monitor. Then while that’s running and they’re starting to get that data back on how many gamers in their market are using it and what they like to play, they can then leverage that and use the Fiber Gaming portal to run local tournaments, local events that are unique to their area and do that in partnership with schools or maybe local stores or restaurants would want to sponsor a tournament. And Fiber Gaming Network will be a portal where they can do that in a much more affordable way than those traditional one-off events you talked about at the beginning.
Really excited to see how this all develops in the next year and how ISPs use this tool and this advice to reach such a critical market. Before we wrap up today, Robert, I’m sure there are listeners who are very ready to learn more or get involved with something like this. What would you tell them? How did they reach you? What does that look like? When does this launch? Could you give us a little more information there?
Robert:
Yeah, absolutely. First and foremost, you can go to fibergamingnetwork.com and you’ll see a form that you can fill out to get a demo scheduled. We’d love to go through and tell you a little bit more about how everything’s going to work. We are currently signing up for our pilot, which is going to be launching in April, and there are limited slots in the pilot. I believe we have 23 of the 30 left, but I am doing a lot of demos this week, so that number’s probably going to be going down. But yeah, let us know. We’d love to have you participate in the pilot and then we’ll be fully launching in July or August of this year and taking on more providers. But we’re excited. We’d love to tell you more about it. So yeah, reach out to us. Fibergamingnetwork.com. You can fill out the form or you can email me directly at gilbert, G-I-L-B-E-R-T, @dxtel.net.
Kaleigh:
That’s awesome. Thank you so much, Robert. Thank you, Matt, for your time, and your insights. I’m really excited to see this roll out and see it grow. And thank you listeners for tuning in today to learn more about how you can leverage eSports in your market. Reach out if you have questions, comments, or feedback. We love to hear from you. Hope you have a great day and we’ll see you next time here on the Broadband Bunch.
