In this episode, with our special guest, Daniel Marcus (Founding Partner at Hustle Law and Adjunct Professor of Esports Business At New York University), we discuss teaching the business of esports, why so many sports team owners buy esports teams, the similarities and differences between traditional sports and esports, esports adopting business models of traditional sports, and so much more!

Welcome to the business of esports podcast, the

official podcast of esports. We explore the intersection of

business and esports, one of the fastest growing industries in

the world and the future of fine. Please welcome your host

Paul esports. Prophet Dawalibi. The business of esports podcast

begins now.

From the keyboard to the boardroom. This is the

business of esports podcast. I am Paul the Prophet Dawalibi.

I'm joined today by my friend and co host, The Honorable Judge

Jimmy burrata, for those of you who are new here, welcome to the

official podcast of esports. What we do is we cover the most

pressing game and esports topics and news of the week. We look at

all of it through a business and C suite lens, we dissect, we

analyze the business implications of everything

happening in this industry. For our regular listeners. Thank you

guys for tuning in every week. Thank you for all the five star

ratings and reviews all the love you give the podcast I promise

we read all of them. It's also humbling. Thank you so much. If

you've left a five star rating and review somewhere on the

podcast, if you haven't yet, go leave one or even better share

the podcast with a friend or colleague, someone you know

who's interested in the industry. We really appreciate

it. Jimmy, how you doing this week?

Having a great week, Paul, happy to be back. As

a going listeners. It's podcast day. Let's get into it.

Jimmy, you know I am I'm sorry if I sound a little

hoarse. I don't know what it is about Dubai at this time of

year. But I there's literally a conference every week for like

the next eight weeks. I'm sad. You're not here. Like I don't

have my conference wing man. I think we're a great duo at

conferences because I talk a little bit on stage. And then

you do all the hard work.

That's why humans happy. You don't have to work at

the conferences when I'm there. I would love to be there to Paul

but I you know I have TwitchCon this Friday, I'm super excited

to go down to San Diego for that. We got esports business

summit that's coming out here in Las Vegas in November. I'll be

going to Atlanta for Todd Harris is one of our former guests and

obviously a legend in the industry. He's having a huge

business summit in Atlanta, right up to dream hack. So, you

know, I just that's how we're gonna have to divide and conquer

these things, I think is you're gonna have to work at some of

them. Sometimes.

This is so much better when you are doing all

the all the legwork and collecting business cards and

talking to people and doing the networking and the relationship

stuff. me having to do this now feels feels like I have to do a

real job. I mean, it's just weird.

I think what you need is a handler because if

anyone has seen Paul live at a conference, he's just like on

the live show, just like on the podcast, no holds barred, I

think is the expression and it's just a flood of people that come

up to talk to him after the panel, because they're so

intrigued and find it so humorous that he didn't pull any

punches on stage for any reason.

You know, I saw I was speaking today and we record

on Wednesdays I was speaking today at the World Metaverse

show in Dubai. And I had two panels on the intersection of

gaming and Metaverse, which is obviously a lot of the things we

talked about on you know, business of esports and general

holodeck content. And I will say I had a moderator on one of the

panels who cut me off, like cut me off like two times which was

is like what was happening? I mean, I was like, in the middle

of making a great point. But what was interesting is I am

amazed at the amount of non gaming Metaverse discussion. I'm

almost like, bothered by it. And this is a rabbit hole. But I was

just I just spent the whole day there. So I want to get it off

my chest. It's like who cares about going to pay your parking

tickets in the metaverse right like Does anyone really care to

do that like a website just better for that? I don't know

that I feel like in some cases we've got too far away from what

really this should all be about which should be about the fun

and the gaming and everyone knows fun is sort of my my

entire mantra but it was it was interesting to see right like

there's just so much discussion around it that's not gaming

related. And I don't know if any of its really going to come to

bear but good reminder to go tune in make sure you listen to

our you know, meta business podcasts met a woman podcast

especially and follow up like Metaverse TV on a whole bunch of

our socials. There's more like Metaverse content there than you

would find directly with business of esports. Now, a guy

who may have an opinion on the metaverse may have an opinion on

a lot of things, but someone I'm super excited. Super, super

excited to have on the podcast is our guest this week, Daniel

Marcus, who is the founding partner at hustle law, and a

professor of esports at NYU. Daniel, welcome to the business

of esports podcast.

Thanks, guys. I have a question for you because I'm

listening to start off

good This is like what is the day of people

cutting me off and athletes?

No, no, I think this is good. I think this is good. So

when you mentioned you guys are gonna a lot of conferences, like

what's the first question you always have to ask at a

conference or like any sort of networking event? What's the

first question? There's only one right answer here, by the way?

I mean, it depends. I mean, that's a tough

question, because is it a gaming conference? Or is the metaverse

conference? Because these days, these are very different crowds?

I find at these two kinds of events. I don't

think it matters. One question everyone gets asked

first. What is it? I'm curious? YEAH. Jimmy, what is it?

What is that? That's the question right? What

is it?

Ellis it's always without fail. What do you do?

It's a very, like cut to the chase kind of question. Whereas

like, I like small talk. Right? Like, let's let's evolve the

romance,

and seduce you want to buy me some dinner

first. So I've been I've been trying to I've been

trying Yeah, I've been trying to elevate my small talk. I've also

been sourcing different quips or retorts for for that question.

And the best one I heard recently, Julie, I forget her

last name, but she does a lot of stuff with NF T's in the

metaverse, she was like, when people asked me what I do, I

tell them, I do my best, which I was like, I like that I'm gonna,

I'm gonna start using it.

That kills the conversation just like, it's

hard to, it's hard to come back from that I feel like or maybe

it creates conversation, or other creates

conversation, it weeds out the people you want to talk

to, versus the ones that don't have a sense of humor.

I mean, Daniel, you're gonna be disappointed

here, though, because the first question on this podcast is

always some version of what do you do? But I, I want to, I want

to get the origin story here, the Daniel Marcus origin story,

right? Like, what got you into gaming and esports? Give me a

bit of the background, how you got to here and some of the

stuff you're focused on now. I'm sorry, we're gonna have to cut

face. There's only you know, there's no,

I think you I think you've figured out a way to ask

it in an artful way. So I think that's, that's important. The

narrative version, I guess, in like, the relatively succinct

way to talent is, you know, I went to I went to school for

sports business period, I didn't think it would be esports. I was

an undergrad at NYU Sports Business program where I now

teach when I was there, I did a bunch of different things. You

know, the first thing I ever did professional was right. So I

covered my two favorite traditional sports teams, which

were the New York Jets, which is unfortunate. And the New York

Yankees a little bit more fortunate for sports net New

York, which is the Mets television station, so I wrote

for their digital side ended up at 19 Getting credentialed

talking to Tim Tebow in the locker room and it was the Tim

Tebow jets covering the later years Mariano Rivera, Derek

Jeter, Yankees also credentialed media member so that was great,

ended up becoming the sports director at the FM radio station

at NYU, which is at 9.1 W NYU, and I was given my own half hour

radio show. So doing like audio radio podcasts, this is give me

nostalgic right now cuz it's something I haven't done in a

little bit. But you know, I had, I had my own show, and I ran the

sports division at NYU, which was all student run, until I got

fired in a coup d'etat, which was a big justice dispute or

culture clash between like the hipster, college, radio crowd

and sports people, which was myself and all my friends that I

had assembled. But I guess I was kind of a blessing because when

I was a junior, I ended up starting my first company, which

was called seat swap, which is in the event ticketing space, I

knew I wanted to do that for a while, had the time to do it.

Because I was like, Well, I got fired from this job, I might as

well create my own one pulled together, a team didn't really

know what I was doing. And as we were writing our first lines of

code, I got a full scholarship offer to law school, including

books and a trip to London and I have a very pushy Jewish mother

who's actually in the other room right now, because it's a

holiday. This is why I'm not on video, who was like, the nice

version was, you're an idiot, you should take it. And so I

took her advice. She was right about that, you know, ended up

bootstrapping that company through law school, while you

know, pursuing my JD full time. And when I was there, we did a

lot of good things picked up a lot of traction. And you know, I

got in front of Carnegie Hall, which for those who aren't

familiar, obviously, like one of the most famous venues and all

Music and Performing Arts in New York to pitch them a set like a

an enterprise product before he even had a semblance of a

consumer product to talk about. And I was 21. And it was like it

was hilarious if you think about it. And so the classic joke is

like, how do you get to Carnegie Hall practice. Another way to

get to Carnegie Hall, a little bit of hustle and sending cold

emails. So fast forward through this story. I ended up

graduating law school in the summer of 2017. When I was

supposed to be studying for the bar, we really started to pick

up momentum, and I found out that my company was in the final

round of an accelerator that was started by the Adidas family. So

there's an accelerator called lead, which you guys might be

familiar with just from the esports and gaming space stands

for legacy body Dotzler, who, you know, IDT is Adi das added

Ossur that's there's a named after him. And so he's Linnaeus

started a sports tech accelerator incubator and fun,

and they were like, We want you to come out to Berlin and I

said, Great, as long as you pay for it, and so they ended up

paying for the last minute and I went and when I Should have been

studying for the bar. And so at a fortune 50 companies, they cut

the fields to 40 and I was in that top 40. And then it was

like three days of startup speed dating very German 20 minutes

blow. So I'll talk to someone else 20 minutes someone else

blow whistle. So the cup filled in half 20 Top 15 Got in Long

story short, I was in top 20. So I didn't end up getting into the

or getting into the final round or part of that initial cohort.

But that's that's fine, because I didn't want to move to Berlin

Anyway, come back. And I get a LinkedIn message from the CEO of

what was then probably the third largest secondary ticketing

company in the states who said, Hey, listen, I read an op ed

that you wrote, I got permission from my board to roll up a

couple of companies in the space would you want to have that

conversation and so just picture your me right now. You're 25 You

don't really want to be a lawyer like that was the law degree was

free. So I had no designs of being a lawyer and the prospect

of taking a company like you put a little money into but a lot of

blood sweat and tears and being Aqua hired and living in Marina

Del Rey for a couple of years due respect to Southern

California Jimmy, not the biggest fan of of LA but it

wasn't the worst outcome me there

to the whole song and dance with their C suite, you know, demos,

etc, only to find out that company was hemorrhaging cash,

and they went out of business three months later, and I was

like, Shit, I gotta figure something out. So ended up

taking the bar eventually passing didn't want to be a

lawyer. So I worked for a guy named Steve Gottlieb for my

first job right out of law school, and he had created a

zoom competitor. I won't mention the name. But Steve, if you

Google Steve, Steve is famous for having started a record

label called TVT records, where he discovered Nine Inch Nails

and jaw rule Little John and Lisa Hi boys and pypl None of

them have a lot of good things to say about Steve. I like

Steve. He's a little bit rough around the edges. He's not

afraid to tell people what they feel. So if you guys want to

pick up a cool Docu series and or haven't seen it already,

there's a docu series called The Defiant Ones, which is about Dr.

Dre and Jimmy IV in and there's an episode three there's a whole

like 10 minute vignette about Steve and Nine Inch Nails.

Because Steve told Trent Reznor who's the lead singer of Nine

Inch Nails you ruined what could have been a great career pretty

hate machine, which is probably their most successful album

ever. He called it an abortion. So worth picking up. That was my

so that was my boss for 18 months because he was starting

to zoom competitor and he wanted me to come in and build the

sports division. So I did that. And while I was there, I was

sort of getting my feet wet with producing media in sports

specifically. And I ended up getting close with Pete Rose.

For those that are unfamiliar with this audience Pete Rose is

very famous in baseball not only for having the most hits in the

history of the game, but for being banned for life for

gambling on the game. And so I am the guy to credit or to blame

for having developed and sold Pete Rose's gambling podcast

which you can now listen to but I take no credit for anymore

because the creatives out of my hands, but I did that in 2018.

So this is 2018 now literally right after the Supreme Court

struck down pass button made sports wagering basically

illegal in the States or up to the states to legalize. I did

that split it into a production company where I worked with guys

like Ozzy again, who's famously the manager of the White Sox

when they won the World Series spice Adams who Jimmy and I were

just talking about spice. You don't know him by name, probably

unless you follow me on Instagram, but he's a 10 year

NFL veteran, but he's much more famous for making funny content

on the internet. If you Google Aspies, Adams tree, if you don't

know him by name, you'll definitely know him by meme. So

I worked with him. I worked with nick mangold, who was a Senator

for the New York Jets and David Falk, who was a super agent

before that even was a term and is single handedly responsible

for creating the Air Jordan brand because he was Michael

Jordan's agent for a very long time. So went from there, start

the production company, develop podcasts, TV shows Docu series

around prominent sports figures, you know, the highlights are the

ones that I mentioned. And then somewhere along the way, I, you

know, had different fits and starts with different

entrepreneurial endeavors. I was in a startup incubator in 2019,

called antler. So it's in their first US cohort, whereas an

unpaid started new company from the ground up which to get this

plane back on course here about esports, as well come together

when I was there. This is when I started looking into esports as

business. So one of the things that I looked at as a business,

I was creating an insurance product for esports teams

specifically to ensure player contracts. So it's still

something I plan on doing at some point. But that was my

first foray into it explicitly didn't end up pursuing it in the

context of the incubator because it was not necessarily a venture

bankable business ended up starting illegal tech product,

or hacking the other illegal tech product that was designed

to translate legal documents into legalese, which I still

think is a good idea that didn't get funded somewhere along the

way. This is late 2019. I was like, Well, you know, I should

probably figure something to give myself some sort of like,

you know, financial runway here. It turns out, I had this very

monetizable skill and being a lawyer and I passed the bar and

became made it to the bar. So I never thought of practicing. And

then, you know, I had all these friends that were that I was

working with entrepreneurially that said, Hey, you're a lawyer.

Can you do x y? And he and I said, Sure, you know, I've

always done these things for myself, but I guess I can do it.

And then those became my first clients. And that was three

years ago and I bought a $9 domain name, which I feel

married to at this point still makes me cringe. I think all the

names like I give anything make me cringe. If you understand my

story, you understand why I guess it's apropos or fitting in

between. I had different forays and different businesses, but

always kept the law practice going and growing. Most

recently, I got very, very close to buying a motor sports team in

the Formula E Championship last year until that fell apart in

dramatic fashion, like right after Christmas, when our

billionaire fashion investor decided to pull out via email at

9pm, the day after Christmas, which I thought was a pretty

cowardly move. I won't name his name on the air, but like we

were, I'm happy to talk about it in generalities. And then in

2020, I got asked to read before COVID, I got asked to develop a

course at NYU, which was for high school students originally,

which was called esports, business and culture. And so I

built that course myself. And then in late 2020, they asked me

to teach the business of esports, a class called the

business of esports. I know this is the podcast called the

business of esports,

which you'll appreciate it's trademarked.

Okay, well, that's between you and NYU, I didn't

pick the name. So the two lawyers with me here, I do

appreciate it, I take and that's between you and them, not me.

Don't Don't Don't shoot the messenger, the professor. But so

I taught that class, and different variations of it for

the better part of two, three years. And that's really where,

like, I that became a big part of my brand. And, you know, I

think we've done a lot of good things with that class. You

know, students of mine created basically product concepts that

were responses to two big problems in esports. And in

conjunction with big names that you've probably heard of like

Activision Blizzard. Microsoft takes you interactive, I've had

Strauss Zelnick, who's the CEO of take two in my class a little

bit like it's a laundry list of people that have been through my

class at NYU. And then I started doing a lot more writing about

this originally for Forbes for several years, covering the

intersection of sports esports, tech law and entrepreneurship.

And now I do the same for boardroom. And then these days,

like my, my two primary buckets or hats that I wear, right now

are, of course, teaching NYU, we're, of course, I teach and

taught the business of esports, which I think they'll probably

have to consider changing that name now, and then my law

practice which is, which is ground precipitously. And you

know, I work with a lot of clients in sports and

technology, and startups, crypto, and also gaming esports.

So my clients range from people that you guys know about, and

even the guy that introduced us to, like Jeff Donnelly and mega

fans to a greenlit TV show called Pangea Cup, which is

basically going to be the American Idol for independent

game developers big NFT projects that you've heard of like I did

a lot of the IP work for punks comics, which raised about $100

million, I represent the aforementioned spice atoms, you

know, just just a handful to give you a sense of like, who I

deal with what I do for them, etc. So that's the spiel even

left some things out. But you know, be careful what you wish

for, because I gave you, I gave you more, and then some,

I think, Daniel, I love it. And I know our

audience is gonna love the story. I want to dig like, dig a

bit deeper, though, on the traditional sports stuff.

Because, you know, a lot of your backgrounds in traditional

sports I, you know, it's it's obvious just from the way you

talk about it, there's real passionate about traditional

sports or what we call, you know, meet sports on this

podcast, how much difference in similarity Do you see from an

education perspective, and from a business perspective, because

I think you you have both, in particular, have both lenses,

you yourself, have a degree in sports business, and then you

also teach the bits of esports. And you yourself have worked in

traditional sports and have worked in and around esports.

Right. And so I'm curious what similarities that you see What

differences do you see it's a recurring theme on this podcast,

and a recurring sort of debate, which is, how much should

esports be borrowing from traditional sports in terms of

structure thinking business models, etc? I would love your

take on it.

Yeah, I mean, I think there are a lot of similarities.

And there's a lot of overlap. There's more and more overlap

these days, especially if you think about who the stakeholders

are. Right? So a big part of the way I taught my course at NYU or

teach my course at NYU, is by comparing the two because they

are very similar in a lot of ways but of course, they're

they're very different. So just as a for instance, right, I

talked about the stakeholders. If you think about these

franchise leagues, like the Overwatch League, or the Call of

Duty League, if you look down, up and down, who owns who the

owners of those teams are, those are more more often than not

owners of traditional sports teams, right? You think about

like Robert Kraft and well off and Micky Arison who wants to

Miami Heat. I mean the list is very long, even the owners of

the Milwaukee Bucks are involved with their own esports teams,

maybe not necessarily in a franchise League. So there's a

lot of investment in frame of reference and similarity there.

Especially when when we talk about orc specifically. But

there's, of course, a lot of differences. So where esports

would obviously like to end up is where, for example, the NFL

is right now, you know, the NFL, there's 32 teams, and they have

massive revenue sharing as a result of how lucrative and

coveted the broadcast product is, I think it's about $300

million each team makes every year in the NFL before they sell

a hotdog, sell a ticket, sell a sponsorship, whatever. And

that's just because of the media rights just are worth more and

more money. But esports isn't the same. Right? And I don't

need to tell you guys, I didn't tell your audience to imagine

that esports is going to have that sort of media rights

revenue that traditional sports as at that, at that scale, I

don't think it's going to happen anytime soon, if at all, just

because there are too many titles, right? And the overlap

between who are fans of one title who are fans of another

title is nominal, if at all, right? Like there's a big

difference between Rocket League fans and Counter Strike fans. As

a for instance, they might not even care about each other. So

there's, there's a lot of games, it which makes meteorites really

tough. But the thing that all these audiences understand or at

least these subsidises of these audiences understand is live is

live is to live and live is really important. And live is

still very, very much important for esports you know, whether

streaming of actual matches or streaming of other kinds of

content, right? Like, it's so interesting, because you know,

the Yankees just play baseball team liquid has, like 11

different teams will have a CSGO, team, llama Dota, two

team, et cetera. So it's like the Yankees having a team in

Major League Baseball and in the NFL, and the NBA and MLS and in

like 15 other games, and that's really hard. And the economics

of org specifically are really difficult. Yeah, there's a lot

of similarities. I think sponsorship being such a, like

the main revenue driver is tenuous, right, specifically for

orgs. But esports is not just about orgs. Right. esports is

part of a bigger ecosystem, which is the video game

industry. And the video game industry is like, I'm sure you

guys have said this on this podcast. So many times or ad

nauseam is bigger than Hollywood music and, and probably even

sports combined. You know, it's a nascent, it's trying to find

its footing specifically from like a business model economic

standpoint, you know, there are some similarities in traditional

sports. But to try and use that same blueprint of traditional

sports is going to be it's going to be tough, we can get into

specifics about like, geography and why that doesn't matter and

the provincial nature of traditional sports, but yeah, I

gave I gave you a lot there, you pick picked up which any of the

things that I just mentioned,

I mean, Daniel, I'm so tempted to go at you with

sort of the greatest, I'll call them the greatest hits questions

that we that, you know, come out on this podcast. But before I

go, because I want to ask you about geography. That's an

interesting one, right, like, franchise leagues that are city

based versus, you know, esports leagues that are not city based

at all, like any, mostly anything. Well, League of

Legends has some geography to it, but you don't have the, you

know, Milwaukee, whatever, fill in the blank, I want to just

touch on the ownership thing, because you mentioned most of,

especially with Activision Blizzard leaves with, which is

true, a lot of the owners are owners of traditional sports

teams as well, what in your mind was the impetus for those people

to invest in esports leagues? Because this is, again, a common

debate we've had on the podcast, which is, is it then playing

defense? Because, you know, they think, you know, what, if this

esports thing takes off, and you know, we're, it's a threat to

us, so we'll invest in it even though maybe we don't really

believe in it, we'll have it sort of there just in case or do

you feel like more of it was offensive, where a lot of these

owners see the future, see where it tensions going, see where

industries are going and, and are investing for the future? Or

is this purely a bubble where Bobby Kotick knew a lot of

sports team owners and sold them on esports. franchise? You know,

not ARB sort of don't apply here?

Yeah, I don't think it is, like offensive or defensive.

I think it's like reactive versus proactive. And I think we

see this in a lot of different industries. It's not like

esports and gaming is not unique to this. Did you guys go to

South by Southwest this year? No, no, no. Okay. So if you were

at South by Southwest this year, you would you would understand

that there was one very, very prevalent common theme, which is

that like everyone is trying to shoehorn blockchain and or web

three into a concept and by doing that think it makes it a

good business or a good idea.

A South by Southwest phenomenon just to be

clear, that's every conference I've been to no

yeah, I'm 100% 100% I'm just saying like it was very it

was very obvious there. I was like to say this. I don't know

if you guys are comedy fans. Remember Robin Williams stand

up. But Robin Williams used to say that cocaine was God's way

of saying you have too much money. And I think Think web

three and blockchain the money that has been thrown around in

that space specifically, is a for instance of like, yeah,

we've like we've got too much money and the economy's

overheated. So specifically NF T's. But like, that's an aside,

it's what I'm saying it's

a solution. Looking for a problem is the way

I usually frame it.

Absolutely. And totally, totally agree. I think

esports was exactly like that, because so investors didn't

really understand it completely. But they there was a good frame

of reference for it, right? Like, okay, people want to watch

PGA Tour golfers or, or, you know, NFL because they want to

see someone at the peak of what they're doing and do things that

they can't do. And that's entertaining. And I think the

same is true, of course, with like watching other people play

video games, and watching people play at the highest level of

these different esports and gaming titles. So I think if you

were to go to like 2015 2016, there were a couple big

inflection points, right, like League of Legends World selling

out Madison Square Garden, and the Staples Center, in within a

very short span of time, got a lot of people's attention. And

you know, funny enough, I think it's like the sons and daughters

and children of all these people that have wealth or like, Oh, my

kids are really into this, I'm there must be something to it,

let's invest in it. But let's like the thesis wasn't so well

for him because it was so early on. For example, if you're if

you're Bob Kraft, you and New England Patriots, which is a

multi billion dollar franchise, and someone comes to you and

says we have an opportunity to get in the ground floor of the

Call of Duty league. And like it's an it's an esport. So like

all these buzzwords, check the boxes for them, and there's only

going to be a finite amount, which means there's scarcity.

There, we're like, Okay, we'll put $20 million into a slot,

we'll put whatever it's going to take to capitalize to run the

team and take losses on the chin. But the whole economics of

sports in general sports teams in general is that it's not a

cash flow hand over fist business. Like even the best

teams like the Yankees, barely scratched by make a profit, a

lot of them lose money on a cash flow basis. It's about the

enterprise value of the organization increasing over

time, because of scarcity. And and so I think a lot of for like

franchise league specifically, they made that bet, based upon

their understanding, and then having traditional sports and

the similarity thereof. And being able to say, Well, we made

money on enterprise value with our own team. So I think the

same will be true with esports. But the land is playing, I don't

think that that's going to end up holding true because it's

going to be a really long road to hoe. Because one, of course,

as you guys know, no one owns the game of football, but

somebody owns Call of Duty, right? Like that's protected by

copyright and the developer and publisher Activision Blizzard.

Now Microsoft, depending on how that that merger goes through is

going to happen it has an outsized role an outsized amount

of influence, in every aspect of the sport. So that's a problem.

And then titles, as you guys know, some of them had staying

power for a decade, multiple decades, but there's always the

next one that's that's coming around the corner. And so it's

always like, Who do you bet on and what what's the fundamentals

of this business? Right, the fundamentals of esports is not

meteorites, its sponsorship right now. And who knows if

it'll ever be meteorites, so you need people that are willing to

basically figure out the business side and how to make

money outside of the low hanging fruit, which is predominant

sponsorship. And if you're like, 100, thieves and organizations

like that merch,

so we, you know, we had Arnold from Genji out, or

Jimmy, I don't know if that's where you were gonna go,

no, no, follow your train of thought I was

going to change us. So yeah, let's, let's keep going with

this one.

You know, his view was sale of digital assets,

like skins and things and splitting those with the team.

That's what sort of gets you out of what he called, like,

esports. Winter right now, right, where sponsorship doesn't

barely pays the bills and media rights isn't there yet. And so

for the time being, in his mind, the best choice and I'm putting

words in his mouth, and I'm paraphrasing here, but the best

option was sort of selling digital goods and splitting that

revenue stream with the teams themselves. I don't know if you

agree with that, Dan, but I'm curious to get your thoughts

there.

Oh, no, I think that's actually the that's probably the

like the one under like, if you guys follow Newzoo, at all, I

think that's the one under counter revenue stream, right?

Like, that's the whole Free to Play business model is that

there's no barrier to entry, so I'm gonna pick it up. And then

if you could upsell a finite amount of like, you know, a

certain percentage of your player base, to be able to buy

skins and digital goods and items, or loot boxes, et cetera.

There's a really profitable business to the tune of billions

of dollars a year depending on what your scale is. And so I

think a lot of digital goods, whether they be NF TS or tokens,

or what have you tend to be pretty bunk, because they don't

really like they don't really get you anything, right. They

don't, they don't really there's no inherent value to them. We're

all part of a big social experiment, when it comes to

digital assets about like, what does it take? What do we find

value in and what's it take to make a market? What does it take

to sustain a market and prop it up? But I think for the longest

time, like even before NF T's really came on the scene. Gaming

has always been the first breeding ground testing ground

where people have been willing to invest in things that aren't

tangible. but they get something out of, right. It's not an

investment per se, like a financial investment with an

expectation of return. It's an investment in your experience in

the game. And it's an investment in this case in the team and in

the Oregon, I think you have a consumer base that's like way

more tuned and way more familiar and comfortable with buying

quote, unquote, digital goods and anything. So I think that's

if not the best, one of the better ways to think about

monetizing esports writ large outside of the traditional

rounds.

I don't know what direction you wanted to take.

Yeah,

thank you. I was waiting for you guys to wrap up.

I definitely wanted to jump in here, just because we have Dan

for a limited amount of time. And there's so much that you've

done in your career, and so many topics we could honestly tackle,

I didn't want to admit or leave out something that I found

personally interesting. I mean, Dan, and I connected obviously

over but you know, the three of us here honestly all teaching

esports at various universities, our class just started at UCI a

couple of weeks ago. Dan, I'm curious, the the top questions

or issues that you can spot with regard to your student body,

what they're asking what they're looking for help. And the advice

that you typically give them something that I could possibly

share with my own class that Paul can share with his that our

listeners that are you know, we have a lot that are working in

gaming and in esports, but a lot of them are always looking also

to enter into the industry. So I just wanted to shift the

conversation and get a little bit of your professor type

experience and expertise before before we run out of time.

No, that's fine. And I got as much time as you guys

have. So that's, that's fine, because I'm not eating today for

for high reasons. I kind of feel like a lot of ways I kind of

feel like a fraud with relative to my students, because you're

talking about you're talking about a generation that grew up

not watching TV, but grew up on Twitch and grew up on YouTube

and on social media. And so these are their heroes, this is

their, this is what they you know, eat, sleep and breathe. So

I feel like I learned way more from my students just from a

culture like a cultural standpoint about like for these

people to be your heroes for this to be your main form of

entertainment, etc. For a business standpoint, as far as

like, how do you get in? That's really 50% or more of my class,

right? So I meet for once a week, two and a half hours a

week. So it's a lot of time to fill in. Hopefully this is

somewhat interesting to whoever's listening to this, but

no one needs to hear me talk for two and a half hours. And so

what I've always made it my business of doing is, is having

awesome guests, not because it does anything for me or I like

to name check them, but because you know, you only get so many

opportunities to have effectively a warm introduction

to somebody and make an impression on somebody and I

want to be able to create that for all my students. And so it's

not necessarily a question that I get asked. I just know it's

something that they want to figure out a way to break in. I

know I can lead them so far. But I know you know, when I bring in

Strauss Zelnick, or when I bring in J, Mr. Luna, from Team OG, or

when I bring in fatality, Jonathan Wendell, or any of

these people, it's not for me, right. It's for them. And so the

question I always ask every yesterday, last question, I was

asked every guest that I bring into my classes, what's the best

way to get a hold of these days? So there's an opportunity to

make a connection, sports and esports? I think they're the

same that like it's a very opaque industry, for those that

aren't on the inside. It's like, how do you get in? There's a lot

of theory that's taught in school that like, do you

understand how this how this works at a very, very high

level, but I really like to have structure any class with a

deliverable or with an outcome being an answer to the to the

show me what you've done. Don't tell me what you want to do.

Because like when you're at the precipice of a career, it

doesn't really matter, like your talk is great, but actually show

me something that you've done for my students, it's twofold,

right? It's being able to have them make great connections, and

to being able to have a deliverable that says, I really

grappled with this real world problem. And this is what I came

up with. And that's I'm going to talk about and in an interview

or in a conversation, et cetera. So answer your question far

afield. It's not like specific questions as much as it's sort

of actions in the way I structure things to enable them

to get their foot in the door, Daniel,

I mean, but that, that brings me sort of, to the

follow up question, because I think there's a good sort of

line of thinking here, a lot of the pushback I've heard around

just esports call it education in general, because, you know, a

lot of schools have popped up, Jimmy teaches an esports

business class or a few esports. And I used to, you know, I teach

at St. Peter's in New Jersey, and, you know, there's a lot of

these programs around really business, you just St. Peter's

in

New Jersey, in Jersey City, like the ones that made

the run, and that's awesome.

You know, what were people I think, push back a

little bit, is this sort of a degree in and of itself, right?

Like, can you major in esports business right? Or is it really

just a business degree with some esports context? And I'm curious

how you look at it, right? Like is it is it truly it's own thing

that people can, you know, should be able to major in and

specialize in? And, and there's enough content there that is

esports specific, or is it really like I'm teaching you

marketing In the four Ps, but, you know, I'm using examples

that are esports examples like how do you look at esports?

Education? In that sense?

I think it's the latter. I think I think esports

is a very like, it's first of all, you know, if you ask, if

you ask read, I like, there's only one way to spell it. Not

everyone knows how to spell it. One, two, it's become very

buzzword. And three, you know, we're really talking about

competitive video games. And so the one thing I always say is

that every esport has a video game, but not every video game

as an esport. And so what you're learning is effectively the

business of gaming. And if you zoom out more, you're learning

about the business of entertainment. And if you look

at the statistics, it's the most popular form of entertainment in

the world. That is what I would consider, you know, what it is

that you're actually learning? I think, actually, the branding

does a disservice because it becomes like a very sneery

plotline for politicians, especially when you're talking

about student debt. Right? Like I think, you know, don't talk

about religion. I'm talking about politics. But Amy

Klobuchar, who is a senator from Minnesota said in like the

Democratic presidential debates about what's wrong with our

education systems, people are taking out a ton of debt to

major in sports marketing, okay, fine, whatever. Like I think

some of the branding is does does a disservice, because it's

hard to convey to employers with the market, you know, what

exactly it is that you're doing. But I think if you demystify,

like, I also do sports law, right? But what am I teaching in

sports law, I'm teaching contracts, and I'm teaching

torts, and I'm teaching corporations and all those

things. It's just the subject matter happens to be sports. I

think the same is true for esports. Or whether it's a class

you're taking or degree, you're learning about an industry, but

you're also learning about fundamentals of business. And I

think that's something we don't do as an industry very well. We

don't do very well as an industry in terms of branding,

so that like people, whether that be parents, students, and

specifically employers understand that it's really a

head fake. And the last thing I'll say about is like another

another terrible question I get asked as a lawyer is like, when

you tell someone you're a lawyer, the first question I

always ask is, what kind of lawyer are you and how is the

best kind, but in reality, right, like there was a there's

a guy named Frank Easterbrook, who's a judge, federal judge,

who was a professor at University Chicago, who wrote

this thing called the law of the horse or this. So this law

review article called the law of the horse, it's worth a Google,

like, the first two pages are interesting. The rest is very

technical. But it's essentially like, there's no such thing as

the law of the horse. It's an amalgamation of different areas

of law. And there's no such thing as like any sports degree.

It's just an amalgamation of different areas of business, but

you're learning about you're learning about an industry,

you're becoming an expert in an industry while also learning the

fundamentals, blocking and tackling of a business. So as

long as that balance is correct, and that's fine. I think

branding is a big issue that I love

it, I think, super insightful. That brings us

to everyone's favorite segment, what what we call judge Jimmy's

cross examination. Daniel, you'll appreciate this. The way

this works for anyone who's new to the podcast is Jimmy is going

to ask a few rapid fire questions get to know Daniel,

you as a person as a gamer a bit more. They're easy questions,

the rapid fire questions. Judge Jimmy, take it away.

All right, Dan. We'll keep it easy on your first

one. What is your favorite video game of all time?

The quick version is Madden default Mario Kart and

I'm looking forward to the reboot of the PGA 2k game. Now

they got Tiger Woods involved. Cool.

Oh, yeah, definitely looking forward to

that one. Any games you're playing currently, I would

imagine something along the similar lines.

You know, it's funny. Like I said, this is part of why

I feel like I'm a fraud because virtual hats that I wear, it's

hard to find time to play anything. I just learned this. I

was I was 20 years old when I learned this. Did you guys know

that when you have the no internet screen on Chrome, that

dinosaur if you click the spacebar, it's a game. That I

didn't know that you guys got to try it. It's actually super fun.

So like when I'm in

the game you're playing currently.

I mean, because it because I've been because I've

been for the holidays coming back and forth to Jersey to my

parents house and the Internet, as you guys just saw, it tends

to be spotty at times. So I'm seeing that screen more often.

And click you click the spacebar and the dinosaur actually jumps

and you jump over. So yeah, I mean that that's technically a

game. So we'll we'll count it right.

That is a game and you're a gamer.

That's definitely definitely counts. Let's, let's

get you one more question. This might be loaded, so I'll keep it

as the last one. Just considering what you've done in

your perspective on things that we're learning today. What is

your favorite adaptation of original IP that transcends both

gaming film? You know, whatever medium you choose, but but your

favorite IP that you've seen in gaming culture as well as

outside of gaming culture?

That's a good one. Jumanji? Was Jumanji actually

originally a board game

you know, I've watched the movies but I never

played the board game. I don't know if they made the game after

the movie or before. Yeah, sharing sharing my ignorance

there.

Yeah. So if I was Yeah, I would I would default into

Jumanji of that if I can if I can make that any answer. I

haven't watched the new Halo show. I did not watch Mortal

Kombat. Lara Croft Tomb Raider, I think is probably a really

good example. Yeah, there's, there's, there's probably

there's probably a way better one that's coming down the pike.

What I really want to do, and this is a plot and I don't know

where he stands with it, but I what I really want to do what

I've been working on, I really want to do almost like an

entourage around a professional gaming character with with

fatality being the Jonathan Wendell ie fatality being like,

the main influence, because I don't know, I'm sure you guys

know a little bit about his story. But it's amazing. He's

got all of the swag of like a traditional athlete and the

record to back it up. So there's I think there's a lot anyway, so

I'm almost plugging myself. But that's something I've wanted.

That's something I want to do. And I want to see, because I

don't think one of the things I think that's missing in the

market right now. It took us far afield. One of the things I

think is missing in the market. Is that like, I think there were

TV mainstream media adaptations of, let's say, startup life that

made it cool. Like, I don't know if you guys remember the social

network, which was the Facebook movie, and Silicon Valley.

Yeah. How loves that? Yeah.

Basically my life.

Yeah. So I haven't watched mythic quest. I love

Rob. Matt. I love Rob McElhaney, I think is really good. So if I

watched mythic quest, like I think I think that would

probably be my answer, like the best answer, but I'll take Rob

McElhenney and Meghan GaNS on Facebook, like they do a really

good job at that show. But I do think that there needs to be a

Silicon Valley and a social like a social network type, feature

length film that takes gaming in a more like painted and more

serious light. Anyway, there's a lot of answers, but I really I'd

like to see more. And I think if they weren't there, would it be

like a Silicon Valley for gaming and a social network for gaming?

Then those would be my answers.

Nice, Paul, just so you know, because I know

you're also a community fan like I am. Danny pootie, who plays

Abed on community is a main character on mythic quest as

well on Apple TV plus, so for any community fans that are

listening, you guys know I shared I'm super excited for the

movie that they put back in development. But just a little

fun anecdote there. Well, that wraps up Judge Jimmy's cross

examination. Dan, thanks so much for coming on the show given you

back to Paul, then for those

who want to follow what you're doing, or

reach out to you or find you. How do you like to be followed

or found?

I don't like to be followed, quite literally. But

if you guys if you guys want to check me, I mean, like, I'm all

over the place. So I'm at Danmark is tweets on Twitter,

you can find me on LinkedIn, if you if you look for Daniel

Marcus and hustle law, you can read what I write@boardroom.tv.

So that's Kevin Durant's media platform where I do cover some

esports stuff, you know, if you're a younger person, or if

you're a parent thinking about a career in this space, just

Google Daniel Marcus NYU, and you'll, you'll find a lot of the

stuff that I've done in academia. So that's me. Those

are my shameless plugs. You can always email me at dan da n at

hustle Hu, S t le law, l Aw, group, g r o u p.com. Not

everyone puts their email out there. I don't know why not. It

just seems like a smart thing to do.

Yeah, you're right. I think everyone has

considered it like too old fashioned now, but I agree. It's

the easiest way, then, look, we could have done six more

episodes with you. There's so much to talk about. I really

appreciate having you on the show. And our audience is going

to love this. Jimmy, thank you. As always, just a couple of

reminders for our listeners, make sure to follow business of

esports everywhere. You can get all kinds of content on all

platforms on Instagram on tick tock on YouTube, on Spotify,

like we put different content on every single platform on

LinkedIn, obviously. So make sure to follow a business of

esports busy sports everywhere. And don't forget to tell your

friends about the podcast and the live show we do every

Wednesday evening, or every Wednesday afternoon, I should

say 2:30pm Eastern time. It's evening for me, but it's 2:30pm

Eastern time. Every single Wednesday, we do a live show, we

cover all the news from the week. It's a lot of fun, it's a

bigger cast, and you get to participate live and disagree

with me or disagree with Jimmy or agree with us and get in our

faces. So we encourage you to get to come out every Wednesday

2:30pm Eastern Time on all the platforms we stream on so you

can find this pretty much everywhere. And don't forget

guys the most important thing. The future is fun. We'll see you

next week.

Thanks for listening to the business of esports

podcast. Check us out at the business@esports.com and on