Overwatch League is NOT the end all be all ft. Bryce Blum & Nahaz | The Rivalry Cooldown

Take a breather, refresh, and join us on the Rivalry Cooldown, where we give you the current topics in esports from the experts. On this episode, we interrupt a little bit less and explore the diversification and business models of esports a lot more. Bryce's firm represents a huge list of tier 1 esports orgs and talent and has extensive experience at looking at venture capitol trends, esports stories, and he has been a regular at TI, so he's not stranger to Dota. Plus, turns out he and Nahaz are huge fantasy nerds - so stay until the end for a special segment :D

👇👇 TIMESTAMPS & AUDIO ONLY PODCAST links below 👇👇

1:30 - OWL talent are all leaving

4:30 - Esports is a tiny part of Blizzard's overall budget

5:30 - Homestead weekends

8:45 - Localization WILL bring value for esports, but it will take time

10:30 - Localization is already working for OWL, we see it at Dreamhack

11:30 - What Nahaz *needs* to see to know if this will work

13:30 - OWL is not the end all be all of esports success

18:00 - but OWL could limit non endemics from esports investments

19:00 - Nahaz, there is no middle ground

20:30 - Bryce: you're both right, OWL matters, but it will be okay if it fails

21:40 - Not all investors are smart

23:40 - Bubbles mean that you're planning on selling to another sucker as the price inflates

26:00 - Bryce's issue with how people talk about esports, often with hype over substance

28:30 - In esports, a team is diversified (multiple teams, multiple IPs)

31:00 - Nahaz: The one biggest mistake esports has made...

32:50 - Teams should not have been made to rebrand for OWL

35:00 - Shout out to Ateyo https://ateyo.com/

36:00 - Optic's green wall invades Dota

40:15 - Reasons that investors buy in to esports

46:30 - Nahaz on Dota vs other esports

48:00 - Why is CSGO vs Dota policy different?

49:30 - Valve is outrageously successful

52:20 - Riot is LoL and LoL is Riot

55:30 - Valve *is* hiring more for esports

59:00 - EA can afford to pour capital into a game

1:02:00 - Time for books. Sanderson, Rothfuss, Terry Brooks - you name it.

PODCAST LINKS: You can also listen to this podcast on a bunch of platforms:

👉 Apple - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-rivalry-cooldown/id1450022687?mt=2

👉 Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/3aVjv9JZuKVNdTINMOvsWT

👉 Google Play - https://play.google.com/music/listen?u=0#/ps/Ilum4whhvxbfvxfnn6do3xpbkqq

👉 Stitcher - https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/rivalry/the-rivalry-cooldown

👉 Podbean - https://rivalry.podbean.com/

Follow our Guests on Twitter:

👉 Bryce - https://twitter.com/esportslaw

👉 Nahaz - https://twitter.com/NahazDota

Follow our host on Twitter:

👉Reinessa - https://twitter.com/ReinessaGaming