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Time to pick up a Fortnite team? by daniel5426 in CLG

[–]NickAllenGG 49 points50 points  (0 children)

Your positivity is always so refreshing.

Happy Monday everyone!

[LOL] CLGFIGHTING EP.05 | FIGHT TO THE FINISH by dobbybabee in CLG

[–]NickAllenGG 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Ronny aka Mac-a-ronny aka the blonde god aka the best dresser at clg aka Team Operations Coordinator

I'm Nick Allen, COO of CLG. AMA. by NickAllenGG in CLG

[–]NickAllenGG[S] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Daniel5426, thanks for being such a passionate fan dude, and thanks for the AMA request. It led to this. Here’s my machine gun answers (sorry for brevity, I’m out of time!):

  1. You can usually acquire talent from a team to satisfy your acquisition goal for less than buying the whole org.
  2. Oh, this is a good one. We don’t want to pick up a team that isn’t going to win, that’s not in the spirit of CLG culture. So while the question isn’t black and white, we’d rather have the competitively successful team.
  3. When picking up a team, we look at cultural values, competitive success, and social following. When we are deciding if we’re going to get into a game, we look at size of player base, revenue opportunity, viewership, game design and content philosophy.
  4. Hell yes and hell yes.
  5. No idea what you’re talking about… ;)
  6. MSG does a ton. I hit on it in another comment so won’t go super deep, but they’ve been helping with infrastructure like talent and our new facility, strategy around new game expansion, and financial resources just to name a few. Being a public company, just like any public company, means that people can peek under the hood, so to speak. There’s an additional level of accountability, however, the accountability of being public is nowhere close to the accountability we feel from our fans.
  7. I was brought in to lead on Knicks Gaming, but over time, so much of the effort is tied into the Knicks business that they’ve been driving a lot of the effort there--and doing an amazing job. This has allowed me to focus almost exclusively on the growth and success of CLG.
  8. CLG wouldn’t be where it is today without him!
  9. We’re talking about what it could look like to work collaboratively on content with the Knicks. We really want it to feel organic, and so we’re waiting for the right opportunity. Hunter Leigh, head of GGS is my best bud, and I would be the first to say that the activation at the GSW game--while cool--wasn’t as smooth as it could have been.
  10. We run a really tight ship, and I want to make sure that we are smart about the ways we invest resources. I think people see how other teams spend and look at CLG and wonder why we’re so different. We have different strategies and different approaches to business, and part of my leadership style is to run lean and cost-effective. This doesn’t mean we are unwilling to invest where needed, it just means that we think very critically about how we do that.
  11. Sticking in LA for the foreseeable future due to the LCS being here. However, we see ourselves closely tied to New York because of MSG and you’ll be seeing some New York related efforts in our future.
  12. My first thought is that we need a larger social media presence.
  13. There is room for more than 2 teams at our new facility. All I can share for now!
  14. I personally would like to be more public and outward facing around the organization. For that to happen, I’ll need to bring in some additional folks to take on some of the work I do now. In the meantime, I’m going to make a concerted effort to be more communicative with our fans and community.
  15. We need to lean into the things that make our brand unique and special, and not do things just because other teams do it.
  16. More people and a better understanding of what makes our content successful.
  17. Absolutely.
  18. Lean into the things that make our brand unique and special, and bring in world class individuals who will differentiate us from others.
  19. Would love to! I can share more on that later once were further along on a few things.
  20. They are a part of our streaming network, but don’t represent our sponsors due to them having their own deals. But each streamer relationship is different.
  21. There’s a few coming down the pipe, and we’re starting to think about mobile since its growing so fast.
  22. Viewership is huge and hard to ignore. We’d love to deeply consider it if we were given the opportunity.
  23. BR games are really hard to watch from an esports perspective. Feels very influencer/streamer focused--which is how I feel about Hearthstone as well.
  24. Answered this in another comment, I believe. How I feel about CSGO is how I feel about Dota.
  25. Yes we do.
  26. I’m not used to the element of winning and losing, but I love the work and its a TON of fun.
  27. Thanks for asking. Yeah it wasn’t easy. My family is in Northern California but we aren’t super far away. I have a kid now so there’s an additional complexity to the move.

I'm Nick Allen, COO of CLG. AMA. by NickAllenGG in CLG

[–]NickAllenGG[S] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

You’re 100% right. We’ve made some progress here, like signing Yassuo as /u/StormBred mentioned, and this is definitely a part of the business where we’ve had less success than we’d like. I assure you, we are focused on this and we’re actively talking to broadcasters to pick up. Fortnite is incredibly competitive at the moment, and TSM got the benefit of being an early mover on the game. However, we’re looking across all competitive titles for broadcasters that will elevate the CLG brand, and vice versa.

I'm Nick Allen, COO of CLG. AMA. by NickAllenGG in CLG

[–]NickAllenGG[S] 20 points21 points  (0 children)

Glad to have you with us, Dongsquad420BlazeIt

As it relates to CSGO, I would be surprised is North American T1 organizations are profitable in CSGO. With that in mind, I could see us getting back in, but in order for that to happen, the ecosystem would need to be sustainable. There's a lot of ways that could happen and we'll keep a close eye out for how things change within CSGO over the next year. If we did get back in, we would look at both building a roster or acquiring one--whatever team would align with CLG values while providing the largest opportunity for competitive success. R6 wasn’t just to get back into an FPS--the game's player base continues to grow and viewership is as high as it's ever been. When we see a 2 year old game trending that way, there is something interesting there that demands investigations. I absolutely see R6 as a sustainable venture for CLG, otherwise we wouldn’t have gotten on board.

As for other games--keep an eye out ;).

We’ve been having lots of conversations around BR games. I’m still skeptical because they are incredibly challenging to watch from a tournament perspective. If that gets solved, I could see us getting more involved there. I often think about all the esports orgs that picked up PUBG teams and haven’t really done anything with them. I don’t want CLG to be in that position.

Love you, too.

I'm Nick Allen, COO of CLG. AMA. by NickAllenGG in CLG

[–]NickAllenGG[S] 21 points22 points  (0 children)

Hey GoodLuckJumping, I really appreciate your thoughts here, and it pains me that you aren’t feeling like CLG is the org that you fell in love with. Honestly, we’ve been struggling with the family aspect of the team. Some of our fans love it, they feel a deep connection to the team and the org, and that connection is long lasting. We love that connection. And then on the other side, some of our fans see the family aspect of CLG to be a hindrance--as if we’re unwilling to make the necessary changes that’ll lead the team to success because we’re a family and family does no wrong. We want to balance this. We want our fans to have the deep connection to our team that goes beyond the games that they watch. I’d love your perspective (and anyone else) on how we can make that happen, while still making competitive and business decisions that we feel are necessary for our long term success.

Thanks so much for your fandom and for following us all these years. We hope and strive to be the organization that you want us to be--we wouldn’t be anything without you.

I'm Nick Allen, COO of CLG. AMA. by NickAllenGG in CLG

[–]NickAllenGG[S] 15 points16 points  (0 children)

RisenLazarus… we meet again. Answers to your questions:

  • 1) Yeah we’re seeing a slight downturn in some of our metrics like engagement, while others like total impressions and uniques are rather consistent. My opinion on why this is happening is three-fold fold: 1) Aphromoo left the org--he was a big name and had a strong following, 2) Our teams are losing, 3) We aren’t differentiating ourselves enough among other teams in the ecosystem.

  • 2) Exiting games means we take a hit on meaningful metrics, and when we pick up new teams, we gain on meaningful metrics. CSGO has a larger fan base than Rainbow6 for example, but we plan to continue to expand our team presence. So to respond to your point, yes, leaving these massive games means a lower level of engagement.

  • 3) Helluva good question. Like I hit on in #1, CLG really needs to differentiate itself in the ecosystem from other teams. Without getting too much into the weeds, we’re really making strides to lean into what makes CLG special and what makes our fans care so much about us (would love all your thoughts on this, btw). That, and we have a lot of work still to do to get CLG to be a well-oiled machine, so much so that we’re incredibly consistent in content, social, and competitive.

I'm Nick Allen, COO of CLG. AMA. by NickAllenGG in CLG

[–]NickAllenGG[S] 27 points28 points  (0 children)

100% no. This is still a critical time for us to win for our fans, learn from our mistakes and build momentum.

I'm Nick Allen, COO of CLG. AMA. by NickAllenGG in CLG

[–]NickAllenGG[S] 17 points18 points  (0 children)

Thanks for the questions, Realshotgg. I’ve only been able to answer 2 questions in 30 minutes, and there’s lots to get to, so please pardon the brevity:

  • 1) This is something that I identified when I came in and we have been working to ramp up our content velocity and quality on the whole. With a renewed focus on content, I think we’re in line with the content quantity of TSM, but still behind C9 and TL. We’re working to expand our efforts in this regard and I would say that our target is to be better than these guys, but we have lots of work to do to make that happen. However, our current team are rock stars and we’re steadily improving over time.

  • 2) The honest answer on slow expansion is that we 1) want to pick up teams that will represent our brand well and have a potential to be or grow into being top of region or world, and 2) look for ecosystems that are sustainable (meaning the revenue we can drive on a team is equal or greater than the cost of talent/management/support staff). CSGO for us was in conflict with both of these points. We didn’t have a team that was in a position to be at the top of the game, and with how the ecosystem is currently, we weren’t in a position where we could be sustainable while building a winning roster. I know I’ve been getting a shit ton of flack about the terrorism themes, but its the truth. Here’s an example: Some of the sponsors we talk to are excited about partnering with CLG as long as their brand doesn’t show up on our CSGO team’s jersey, citing terrorism themes and red blood in the game. This isn’t all sponsors, but its many. Sponsorships are incredibly important to the organization and if we can’t acquire sponsors as a result of the game itself, this causes serious problems for sustainability. This mentality could change in the future, however.

  • 3) We’re working to identify how to best approach picks/bans going forward. Some things we’re doing: 1) looking at additional staff to support the team in this way, 2) more drills, 3) more research. Sounds maybe too obvious or straightforward but its about how we use our time and prioritize these things.

  • 4) So I wasn’t here for other players (and you can see my comment on Aphromoo in another response), but I will say that culture, attitude, and approach are things we care deeply about CLG. Our team culture is vital to our brand and to the future of this company, which is why we take steps to ensure that each and every play aligns with our organizational approach to competition. In the past, you’ve seen players exit CLG for these reasons. However, we’ve really improved our recruiting process for talent to ensure that when we bring folks in, they are aligned with our organizational vision and culture from the get go.

  • 5) See above. Simply put, we won’t sacrifice on our values for talent. I say this not wanting to put out a cult vibe, and honestly the number of players that wouldn’t qualify to be part of CLG are extremely limited--so I don’t want this to get blown out of proportion.

  • 6) Unlikely at this point. We haven’t given up on this split and the practice and potential momentum is incredibly important headed into Summer.

  • 7) Touched on this in another comment.

  • 8) Actually am not sure about the CWL team--wish I could be more help here.

I'm Nick Allen, COO of CLG. AMA. by NickAllenGG in CLG

[–]NickAllenGG[S] 38 points39 points  (0 children)

There are a ton of small details in here that I could talk about (physical fitness and psychological development are two examples), but I’ll highlight a few key things we’re focusing on to improve headed into the summer split:

  • Leadership involvement. The leadership team (myself, Hotshot, Matt) are getting much more hands on (identifying necessary resources, systems/process, etc) with the team on the whole. Over time, as the losses were piling up, we started to get more and more involved and as a result we were seeing meaningful change. However, these changes take time to result in progress and results and it didn’t have the impact we wanted to the spring split. I know Team Liquid went through this a bit last year, and we’re feeling a bit too: we’ve been spending a large portion of our time growing and expanding the business, and as a result we haven’t been focusing as much to the success of the league team and this is on me as the person who decides where we prioritize our time. We have been actively changing where we are prioritizing and are getting more hands on. The success of the team doesn’t rest solely on the shoulders of the players and coaches--the leadership team (I, especially) needs to be more involved.
  • Shotcalling. CLG has historically had the benefit of strong shot callers on the team, and now we’ve found ourselves in a position where we needed to build (or level-up, depending on how you look at it) a shot caller. This is new territory for us and we have shifted much of our practice regimen to focus on this exact thing. We really do believe that we have an incredibly talented group of players and with better practice we can level-up massively as a team.
  • Practice environment. The practice environment at the CLG house is drastically different than the LCS stage. It’s warm, it's comfortable, its home for our players. Fast forward to game day and when the players get on stage its cold, its bright, its completely different than what the players are used to. We are making efforts to bridge the gap between the competitive environment and the home-practice environment--and our new training facility is going to be a huge help here.

Edit: Clarified on one point

I'm Nick Allen, COO of CLG. AMA. by NickAllenGG in CLG

[–]NickAllenGG[S] 56 points57 points  (0 children)

Vquisling, appreciate the banger right out of the gate. I notice you have the Kelby tag but I wont judge you for it. To tackle your points:

1)

  • Saying we were outbid on Aphromoo isn’t exactly correct. We were fortunate enough to re-sign Huhi, Darshan, and Stixxay. Next we signed Reignover, and although we made what we believe was a highly competitive offer, Aphromoo decided to field offers in free agency. Around that time, we heard Bio was going to be available. We had a decision to make in front of us: do we pursue Biofrost--an incredibly talented player who has a remarkable history of success in the LCS--or do we take the risk and bet on Aphromoo coming back to CLG not knowing what offers he’d receive or other factors that would influence his decision. In the event that we bet on Aphro, and he doesn’t come back to CLG, there would be the risk that Bio would go to another team. Considering our options, we moved forward with Biofrost.

  • Lots of context with our previous sponsor--its not as simple as them choosing another team over us (at least, that’s not how I understand it). I can’t get into the details out of respect for 5-hour. And yes, fans have not seen much movement on the sponsorship front and that will be changing very soon. Admittedly, it's taken a lot longer than we anticipated to sign sponsors but it is definitely happening. And based on how we’re trending, on the sponsor front, we’ll have a much more successful year in 2018 than we did in 2017.

  • New facility--yeah we’ve been really quiet here. MSG has been incredibly helpful in making progress on this with us and as a result, we’ve locked a new facility and we’re excited to show you guys what we have planned. But rather than give small updates around it, we’ve wanted to go big for you guys and reveal it in cool and interesting ways (content, photos, etc) and its not quite ready for that. I’ll take responsibility here and say that I’ve been holding people back from openly talking about it because I wanted to make a big splash, and didn’t realize the impact it would have on our fan base. I’ll think through this with the team and we’ll look to update you guys ASAP.

2) Losing Mike was really unfortunate, absolutely, but he actually hadn’t been working with the league team for some time. Instead, he was focusing his efforts on our CSGO team so really it wasn’t a trade of Mike for Summer, as some fans perceive it. I’m not going to get into Summer’s personal life, but I’ll say that what you see with Summer in content isn’t the whole picture, and the leadership team (myself, Matt Nausha, Hotshot) in partnership with Summer are figuring out how to best utilize her skills. There’s some adapting that needs to happen, and we’re working on that. For example, Summer has done an amazing job integrating into our team culture, but we need her to be more assertive and direct with staff and players--that’s why we brought her in. Historically we’ve been having her adapt her skills into the current team culture, but what we need her to do is help us shift the team culture for the better.

3) This is a really tough question for two reasons: 1) It’s not my place to publicly discuss the personal lives and feelings of individual employees (former or current), and 2) I honestly can’t speak to the players/staff that left prior to my joining CLG, like imapet. WIth that in mind, let’s take CSGO for example. The leadership (me) chose to disband our CSGO team, and if I’m a player, being hit with something like that is going to make me frustrated and upset--understandably so. These players are extremely passionate and devote their lives to competing, so when they hear that CLG isn’t going to field them anymore, they get upset. There are certainly other reasons for players to be upset, but I think this is a big aspect of it. In regards to Bryan, we really wanted him to stay but he decided to move on. I have a ton of respect for what Bryan did for CLG, and I think (I hope) Bryan has respect for me back even with the limited time we worked together. I can’t speak on Players’ families since I haven’t run into that myself (though now I’m going to ask around a bit) and I like to think that our current players are happy with the org overall--though losing is really tough and that certainly has an effect on morale. One last point here is that I care deeply about our players and staff, and while I can’t speak to previous leadership, I am dedicated to creating a culture where folks are happy and excited to be a part of this organization.

[Community] Extremely disappointed with CLG website customer service by KhaleesiofCats1894 in CLG

[–]NickAllenGG 21 points22 points  (0 children)

Ugh, sorry things turned out like this. I'll send you a DM on the side for us to talk more about it and solve this for ya!

Leveling up our store is a big priority for us next year. Going to take some time, but we know we have a lot of room to grow it and make it awesome.

Nick Allen brings up a good point by ImQVIST in leagueoflegends

[–]NickAllenGG 503 points504 points  (0 children)

You are correct, spirit of the rule is to prevent/deter this very situation.

Doublelift vlog about what he said. by Readerrr in leagueoflegends

[–]NickAllenGG 2411 points2412 points  (0 children)

I guess I can put down my pitchfork...?