How Cxmmunity Built the First and Largest HBCU Esports League

Published Sep 17, 2024, 10:00 AM

Cxmmunity’s Ryan Johnson discusses the journey of building the largest HBCU Esports League and the company’s mission to diversify gaming. Explore how this initiative is bridging the gap between culture, education, and the esports industry, empowering the next generation of talent.

What's your kind of north star that keeps you inspired and going to build this thing?

Ibby Rogie Bro.

I think the thing that lingers in my head the most now that if I stop, someone else is going to take the credit for what we already started.

Say it again, I like that one, not like Bro.

Go back to what I was saying earlier.

There were zero HBCUs in twenty twenty that had gaming and esports programs. I know for a fact that communities started and helped majority of the HBCUs start their gaming esports programs. So like, for me, it's like that that's not subjective, it's very much like objective fact. And I'm like, there's no way that we're going to start this and then let some third party company go raise ten million off of a deck idea to then monetize it off of this community that they had no connection to in the beginning. So again, when I look at our story, I actually watched Bob Johnson's story a lot because what Bob Johnson did, he was like, Yo, people of color want to see themselves on TV. They want to see themselves and events in magazines. We are the culture. There's no distribution network for this culture. Let me build this thing called black entertainment television. And what I'm saying is that CXM is going to be that exact same thing.

Hey, what's going on, y'all? Welcome to another episode of butter Nomics. I'm your host, Brandon Butler Butter atl And today we have a special guest in the house, mister Ryan Johnston, Community Media.

Ryan.

How are you doing today, bros Man.

I'm doing good man. I appreciate y'all for having me on.

Yeah.

Man, Now look for those that don't know, man, like we know you did the game and guru, y'all doing all stuff, Like what is community Media?

You know? So community Media?

We're a media tech company based here in Atlanta, Georgia that focuses primarily on connecting diverse audiences to brand through gaming and anime initiatives. So in real life what that actually means like from a consumer standpoint? I always say, like our companies claim the famous that a few years ago we created the first video game in the Esports League in North America for HBCUs. So I guess just kind of give some a quick back story in context why we even kind of started down this journey of gaming. The whole nine So we learned is that nearly eighty three percent of black youth play video games on a weekly basis, But when you look at the nearly four hundred billion dollar global industry, only two percent of the industry represents African Americans. So we wanted to figure out as like one, me and my business partner Chris, we're HBCU alum. So like we didn't need a thesis, Like our thesis was, Hey, we were students. We didn't need much market research to know that kids at these universities are already playing video games. They're betting in dorms for McDonald's, for cash, like whatever the case may be. And we're like, well, what if we created an infrastructure that actually allowed them to compete in gaming in esports just like traditional sports. So over the time, at the time when we started, we had literally there were zero HBCUs and twenty twenty that had gaming in esports programs. Now they're about sixty seven universities throughout the throughout North America out of the HBCUs, I just say specifically that have gaming in esports. And so, like I say, our claim to fame is that we initially started there and built that out. We're now going into our fifth season of the league, and it really gave us this perspective that, all right, cool, that's what.

Competitive gaming looks like.

But what about other elements that are pillars of gaming, like music, fashion, sneaker culture of food, and travel. And then we started building out other events, series, digital content properties that really touch all of these different categories across the game and vertical.

Yeah.

Man, so folks who don't know, there's a lot of opportunities out here. I mean some people have probably heard a phase clan before. I'm sure people heard of like AMP or you know, consinat. But like, it almost seems like video games just having a moment right now. It's always it's kind of been brewned under the surface for a little while, but it's kind of gone mainstream now. Like, how do you feel about just seeing all that stuff kind of become more and more front street? You know, is interesting? So to your point, I think it's becoming more mainstream. But when you look at the categories of entertainment, gaming is the largest form of entertainment.

It's larger than film, movie, film, TV and music combined. We just talk about annual revenues. So these are the things when you just talk about gaming, A lot of times it's the activity. A lot of times we are thinking about the elemented games, the production, the marketing, the distribution, you know, the actual management. A lot of times, to your point, are communities focused on the front facing consumer side. So a lot of times we are aware of amp phase kysinet like what's happening in the industry, But when you're actually about what's happening on the business side, who are making those decisions, what are the companies that are driving kind of like the change, you really don't see people that look like us that are making those decisions. So that's why we felt like when we've learned the data that so many people, that young people were playing video games on a weekly basis, and then when you looked out in the market, there was no platforms or programs that actually directly market it to people of color in the gaming industry, We're like, well, that's our angle, and like let's just run that direction one thousand miles an hour.

Yeah, Now, do y'all only work with HBCUs or are you working with like other colleges and universities too?

Yeah know, so I just like to preface with the league. But now as community media man, we have a very vast community. So we work with colleges and universities, we work with the general market, we work we have a very robust like creator network. So like the way I like to explain it that community media is kind of like our parent B to B organization. So like my goal with community media is to work with holdings, companies, agencies and brands to really understand their goals and objectives and how they're looking to reach multicultural, gen Z millennial audiences. And so we either use the HBCU Esports League, the Kickback or Trap Sushi as one of our three assets to actually then engage with those communities. So throughout a calendar year, we do about twenty two livestream broadcasts for HBCU e Sports, We do four tent pole in person experiences with the Kickback, and we have twelve monthly event well we have one event a month, totally twelve events with Trap Sushi. So all in from like a total attendance standpoint, we reach about twenty five thousand people in person a month, but digitally we reach about two hundred million people. A month through our different creator and owned and operated channels.

Yeah, and y'all just said, I know, not too long ago, y'all did a deal where y'all did like a partnership or like a semi acquisition of Trap Sushi. Like, just explain to people, are those three different? You know businesses said Trap Sushi to kick back in the course.

Yeah, So, I think when we looked at the gaming market, we understood that there's different audiences within gaming, right, A lot of people, like before the show we're talking about, you know, there's competitive gaming, there's social gaming, and then there's really like that blend of competitive social. But I think the really big element that we lean on is like culture, bring in like music, artists and entertainers. So HPCU Esports is just that it's a competitive esports league. So literally think of like the NCAA. It's a twenty two week long season. Howard plays Morehouse, Fisk University plays Oakwood University. They play for a record in a regular season that goes to a playoffs that then determines the champion. And then we do that across different titles like NBA two K, Madden, Call of Duty, and Fortnite I think the distinguishing factor for HBCU Esports is we also provide scholarships. So in the last two years, we've done nearly two million dollars with the scholarships to active HBCU students that are playing in this league. So I have like close to ten to fifteen students in the last two years that have earned over one hundred k playing and like within the HBCU Esports League itself, so the kicker there is that, So that's more of like the tournament organization side. So then on the business side, we handle the production, we do the sponsorships, and we do the media rights for our league as well. So through that side is when we bring in brands, just like again the NCAA for US, we've had historically Verizon discovered Nike, and Hot Pockets and Mountain Dew are like our season sponsors for the HBCU Esports League itself. So like that's that structure. Then we have the kickback. The kickback is a little bit different where it doesn't focus on competitive gaming and esports. That's more so around the careers, education and music. So we're literally doing the kickback September DC September nineteenth in Washington, DC is actually our first arena activation, so I'm like personally super excited about that.

But the way that program works.

In the morning, we bring in like one thousand K through twelve and college students. They go through panels and workshops about careers within gaming. The middle of the day we do a gaming tournament, and we conclude kick back with the concert. So even from like a musical perspective, the last few years, we've done push a t we did g Herbo. Last year we did n L E Chappa. I feel comfortable saying it now. We literally just executed the agreement. So on September nineteenth and DC we'll have JID So like we're actually just like finding these creative ways to really bring this education and information into our community, and we just do it through these interactive, live and virtual events. And then the last one trap sushi, gaming and anime they go hand in hand, right, And then when you look at culture now, I think the perfect example is like Megan thee Stallion. Right when you look at her most recent album, like there's anime references, there's video game references on nearly every single track. But for us being so heavily focused on our main assets. We're like, hey, look, we don't need to create a competitive asset to figure out how to get into gaming. Like, let's just invest into an organization that's already doing amazing work and has a strong community, and let's figure out how to bring our worlds together. And that's what resulted in the investment into Trap Sushi itself.

Okay, and you do that through all your you know, your partnerships, so you know who are some of the main brands that you all work with to help make all this stuff happen.

Yeah, so actively right now, Exfinity, Microsoft, we do a lot of work with Nike. Nike is really cool one because we do a lot with like their virtual goods. So when Nike's doing like literally just yesterday, Nike announced a partnership with Lego and that I'm assuming is going to tie down the road into Lego's partnership into Fortnite, and Nike has Nike World and so like where I really started to recognize, like, our opportunity is working with these with these brands and almost like these future marketing plans and strategies of how they're trying to connect through to these audiences, and a lot of times it has to do with gamings involved.

Yeah, you know when you think about it too, I mean you're make it a good point because when you think about it, you know, all these brands are essentially competing for attention, correct. And you know, as a former you know, app developer, software engineer, I would always tell people, you know, you're competing not just with TV shows. You know, you're competing with candy crushing on people's phones and stuff now, but you know, if people are playing video games like you're saying, and it makes perfect sense for these brands to want to get involved with organizations like yours or even get involved from the games. I mean, you're starting to see more in game advertising exactly. I can only imagine what kind of stuff's going to be out on GCA six when it drops, exactly. But I think these brands are starting to kind of recognize that, you know, a lot of this attention is going into video games, and so how can we kind of put ourselves there, Like when they come to you, what kind of you know, problems or you know, what kind of reasons are they coming to you and community media to work with you about?

Yeah, primarily I don't want to necessarily label it a problem, but I think what they see value when is the fact that we have this community of like not only digital impressions but actually real people that show up at these activations, and we have the ability to authentically help message one their product brand messaging to this audience. But then also you know, transparently it boils down to like, you know, their bottom of funnel when it comes to like purchase intent, brand favorability, and you know, for us, again kind of marroring the fact, marrying the fact that we have this community, marrying the fact that we have these brand audiences, we just have the responsibility again to say, like how do we then create a program or a can and pain.

That's value add to both sides of the coin.

And what we know historically is that when you look at the gaming ecosystem right now, there's big events like in Atlanta, there's dream Hack, right There's other events like packs, there's the esports. There's a lot of different things that go on, but again, none of them cater to people that look like you and I not saying that people don't show up that look like you and I, but I think holistically, what we recognize is when you look at the diverse media landscape. You know, we cover fashion, we cover music, we cover food, we cover beauty and travel. Is that a single major, scaled, diverse publisher that talks about gaming and anime?

Something will tell me you all started working, But like, what was it like getting that first brand deal? Like how does that happen? Where you cold? Because a lot of people don't know right lives. I've talked to people and they don't really understand what it takes to even start finding brands and partnerships. So is that something you all were kind of actively seeking? Were you cold emailing people? And if people kind of reach out, like what was those first couple of deals?

Like jero so I think the jonah that.

I'll just like share a bit about my background So before community media, the reason I actually moved to Atlanta after school in twenty fifth team. My background is in sales, so I actually started out doing it sales with Vanish business here in the city. I'll stage yeah, like crazy like literally cold calls, door knocks, but on the B to B side, not the consumer side. So right out the gate, I had learned how to begin speaking, talking and developing like a sales funnel and a sales process. So I went from IT sales to IT consulting at a business in the King and Queen Building, and literally I left Corporate America in twenty eighteen to go back to Georgia State full time to get my master's in sports management. And it was the practice of understanding now the world of sports business in sport and an actual formal practice, and marrying my day to day job and then understanding like, hey, oh cool, I'm already going to tech conferences and networking and closing deals on the IT side. It doesn't seem too far fet to think that same process would exist if I start going to sports marketing gaming related conferences and meeting brand marketers that are literally trying to do the same thing but just through a different perspective than I was doing in my corporate job. So it was as soon as we started, it was cold calls, going to events, networking, shaking hands, you know, introducing people to what we do. You know, one caveat I would love to just share, you know, to kind of speak to this as well as a little nuanced about our company is. Before Community Media's launch, which was September twenty twenty one. We actually started the Community Foundation was our first baby in January of twenty twenty. So I like to preface and mention that because under our foundation, we already had some very strong partnerships with brands like Microsoft and Verizon. Where we decided to start a separate for profit business was when a lot of our partners were asking us to do things outside the scope of our five oh one c three. So we're like, hey, yeah, we can definitely do this, but you know, as black entrepreneurs, like I'm not trying to get caught up in know, financial scandals and using the like a foundation the mask as a for profit. So we're like, yeah, let us handle this. But first, internally, we need to stand up another organization let's call it Community Media, and that will serve as our marketing, appizing, production talent arm and still to this very day, our Foundations serves as like our academic community based you know, teaching kids about coding, game design part of our part of our business. So I say that to say is like we launched the for profit with like seed capital and the fact that we already knew that we had brands that wanted to invest in the work that we were going to be doing now.

And for your background too, that's interesting. Were you always kind of wanted to do something in the video game space because you were saying you doing ITT sales and then you went and got to sports management. Did you just like see an opportunity and kind of went after that or was this something that you always want to do.

So I'll get the quick background roll.

So, like my goal in life was always to be like a basketball agent.

Okay, that was my passion. That was why I wanted to go to Georgia State.

At the time I was at Georgia State, I was interning it like these small international like FEBA firms and all this stuff. Through that process, I was like, you, I actually don't want to be a basketball agent. I want to say as far away from this as I possibly can, but I want to stay close to culture in sports. I played high school college basketball, so like it's a part of just like who I was. To answer your question, the kicker was around and don't quote me on this, right, between twenty sixteen and twenty eighteen, right, Georgia was one of the first five states in North America to launch varsity high school esports. So what that actually means is that all of our counties here they have esports. So there's varsity teams. As I mentioned, we created the HBCU Esports League because there was already majority pwis that had esports at the collegiate level. These pwis are recruiting down, so that means young black kids are missing out on scholarship opportunities, they're missing out on new internships that are coming into the.

Market, the whole nine.

So what we recognize is that inadvertently the state had alienated a lot of schools because all the titles in the first two years were computer games. So if your school couldn't afford the computer lab, the hints, you couldn't have a esports team. So we're like, yo, as this is going to grow throughout North America, this seems like it's going to be a problem. Sort of like community could be the group to be the voice for these inner city schools initially to help them actually ramp up and get an esports program. So that was like the major fact about, Hey, we see this happening right in front of us. I'm in the midst of this in a sports management program in the city of Atlanta. And to your point, my passions for gaming, for sports, for music, it all exists within the gaming industry, So like, well, why don't we just go down this route and through this process. You know, our organization, one of our ambassadors is like Ocho Cinco, you know, we work with major musicians, is like touching everything that we love to do all through this industry of game and is like been kind of crazy. But that was the background of why we got started, was just seeing the problem and just wanted to help kind of fill the void in Atlanta first.

But now we spread that throughout North America.

Yeah, it's also interesting to think, you know, especially with y'all launching the foundation around January twenty twenty. We all know what happened, you know, around February March April. How did the whole pandemic you know impact your business? Like I know, for me specifically, even though that was kind of a terrible situation, you know, from a butter standpoint, we actually grew a lot during that time. I remember telling my team, you know, look, y'all, everybody's about to be at home on their phone, so we got to find ways to like lean in and kind of provide value. And I think for Butter, we kind of created a lot of separation and kind of like really helped solidify our space and culture. But from your standpoint, especially from a video game and standpoint, did y'all see any you know, specific benefits of that you know that time?

Yeah, bro, for sure.

And I always say, like, going back to January twenty twenty, shout out to Joey Willmac from Goody Nation, Bro, because it was his panel that I did that. I was like, yo, I think this is an idea, and then I quit my job like no, no, like literally the next week after, I was like, I'm gonna try this thing community. So I always say like, thank you for that. We work labs program. I always say the Goodie Nation, we work labs piece. But to your point, we saw exponential opportunity, right, so marketing budget shifted, media budget shifted, social impact budgets increased. Also, you got to think it was COVID and George Floyd simultaneous. We were then a group that was talking about gaming and HBCU esports in community and they were like, yo, this just makes sense. So that we actually saw within like the first call it eight months. You know, we were working with brands like Microsoft, Verizon, red Bull because this was all kind of part of like this new revent marketing strategy and so like early on that was our kind of like kickstart. But the main thing, as you know, kind of being a brand marketer is like continuity and renewals, right, So it's like, how do you then create sustainable programming that not allows brands to show up for a moment, but that allows them to show up for a movement, right, And so that's kind of been like the main focus from day one is like we as a salesperson, you know you can close a deal. As a salesperson, you also know the hardest thing is to get a renewal, right because as soon as you get a deal closed, that.

Means fifty other people are calling.

They're trying to figure out how to upseart your deal, how to short and so like for me, that's kind of been the main focus. It's just like despite getting this brand bought in, it's like, what do we need to continue doing in the community, know, put intended in the market to continue to show value outside of what other call it brand partners are bringing to the table. And so I just think that has been a big part of why we've seen some early success and you know, you know, knock on. What continue to do is, yeah, we're providing traditional marketing insights impressions, but it's this actual connection to the community and this growing space. And that's what I tell my partners all the time. It is like, yeah, y'all are sponsoring an event, but like, look at yourself, no different than like the first partners of the NBA. Right Like, when I look at what we're building, it's seventy five years down the road. It's going to be a media network of you know, the NBA Cares, it's going to be NBA All Star Weekend. But it's all going to be wrapped around this ethos of gaming as kind of like the central passion point.

Yeah, so come back to net Like, how big is your team right now? With community?

Right now we're ten full time and what's that? What's that process been like building the team? B There's been ebbs and flows, right, I mean we've had probably as many as eighteen, we've been as low as six, right, and so right now I think we're in a really good place. We literally just brought on two new people in the last month to help with like our content and our like our account team. But now we're growing a team. One cavet All also say, we're like I grew up an only child.

Shot me too.

There you go. And it's like you always have this vision of like, hey, I have this thing in my head.

I want to bring it to life, and of course you know you need people, but then I don't think you realize how much you may need people until you're actually in the process, because you're not used to having people around. And so I would say early on, delegation was really really really hard for me and just like being able to like hand out certain tasks just because like everything's so close to your chest. But then I realized, man, like with clear instruction, clear follow up, delegation is probably like the best thing that's ever happened.

Yeah, man, delegation exactly.

And so again, just going as an entrepreneur, you' like you always hear it, but like you never really feel it until you're in it. And it's like, man, just being able to be open minded, be flexible, you know, care about other people's problems outside of the business problems, like putting like people first is something that I'm even still learning how to do versus like the business first, but now growing a team. It's been a process where I was like, it's almost like a mini fanamily to a degree, and some family members like get divorced and others start new families. So like it's just very interesting, like just kind of being in that process. So that's what I always related to. But it's it's definitely been fulfilling. But me as a I guess going on as a five year entrepreneur, still learning that process of like what it actually takes to properly manage and grow grow a team.

Yeah, I think, you know, one of the things I have probably done best in my career in the last i'd say five to seven years is really learn how to become a better manager, learn how to you know, work with people, how to lead people, and also how to like let go of certain things. Like the one thing I always kind of tell people is what I've realized is, you know, nobody's going to do stuff the way you do it, right, So we all have to kind of come up with a personal threshold, right, like are you okay with somebody who can do something seventy five percent eighty percent as well as you can do it. That last twenty is a tough putt, you know, that last twenty that's the magic maybe only you can kind of bring in. It's something only you can do. But if you can find somebody that pretty consistently can get about seventy five to eighty percent of what you typically do, and that then frees you up to do other things, it means a world of difference in the job of a CEO. It's kind of like the work themselves out of a job. It's to enable people and kind of put people in places so that you can focus on working on the business, not in the business. But how has that been for you?

Though?

You know, if you've been pretty hands on, what's it been like letting go of that and saying, you know what, that's not quite how I would have done it, but it got done and I'm cool with that.

So I think it was like a mixture of the only child syndrome and the entrepreneur like, hey, we have to deliver for brands, and like finding the balance between both because then it's just over time you do more deals, you get more comfortable just in your own role. You realize the things that may have mattered a lot to you are literally they may not just be that important, right, Like, hey, this format and a document may not like it literally doesn't matter, right as long as the deliverables match, right, the clients are getting what they want. Again, there's still standards we have, you know, SOPs, we have all these processes.

But I've had to learn just be like it's okay.

Like that's what I find myself saying more than like literally on the way today, like we had a little snap, a little hiccup yesterday with some stuff, but got situated this morning. Like an old version of Ryan probably would have carried that with him until four o'clock.

This afternoon, right like and just stewed on like why was it like this? Why not the way dude it?

That's literally what I said on my way here. I was like, it is okay, it's done. Everyone's happy, it's cool. And I think it's more of like I'm developing more emotionally mature than anything. And that's why I say, like, I think by the time I have a kid, I think I'll be a solid parent, bro, Because I feel like all the things that would may have made me frustrated in what I see in my other peers that have like little ones.

I was like, I'll be able to that'd be cool.

What's what's been the biggest thing you've kind of learned in this journey? Is it kind of just being learned how to work with people in that capacity or because there's just again, I think a lot of times people they kind of discount the entrepreneurial journey. You know, it's kind of being you know, fetishized a little bit in my opinion. And plus people also kind of think too for some reason, it's bad to have a corporate job, right, And I always tell people like that's almost like going to college if you really want to be an entrepreneur. Like the ability to learn how to do you know, work on somebody else's dime goes a long way. But like, what has been some of the biggest lessons that you've kind of learned just through this journey of the last five years.

Oh, honestly, bro, Like the last week has been very eye opening because I like all my lessons, I feel like I've consolidated. But I would say, like I realized this past week is like what's for you? What's for me? Is for me, and what's kind of for you is for you. And I think that's been my biggest learning in this journey, is like being able to cheer for everyone. And I think a lot of times that, even in a weird way, opens doors for you.

When you're like, I'm.

Very excited when a peer of mind that's an entrepreneur, we may be competing for something similar, like you may get them, Like, yo, that's that's mad dope, bro, Like I'm super excited.

I think being open minded. I say a big one is perseverance.

You know, also kind of a part of my personal life, a part of the fraternity Alpha Ba Alpha, and we have a poem, don't Quit. I find myself saying that poem a lot. And it's like, I think a lot of times I see people give up right before they should. Yeah, And I think seeing that enough times is enough motivation to keep going. And so I like always lean heavily on perseverance.

Bro.

It's like it's never going to be easy. But the ones that I have been.

Following and I look up to, the other thing I can confirm more than anything is that they never stopped. Like I don't know what else they may have had going on in the background, but it's like, what I do know is that they have just never stopped. And that is kind of like my plan until we get to the point of like, hey, we're we've achieved what we personally set out to do. We're kind of going through internally with the company, like what does our exit strategy plans look like? Right? And still in my mind thinking through that, right, and so anyway, bro, I just feel like that it was an awesome question, but it's like I would boil it down to being open minded, perseverance, and then like literally just cheering for everyone.

Win for you is necessarily a loss for somebody else, right, Like everybody can vice versa, yeah, and vice versa, like both people can win and it can be okay. Or even if you do something and you know this other brand gets a little bit more money than you, like, there's still opportunities to kind of win. I think again, a lot of times people get so caught up in it's got to be like we get look competitive, and reality is like the more you kind of help people and bring people along, all kinds of opportunities open up. But even to your point about just being tired, I mean again, everybody. Look, look, y'all. I don't think y'all understand everybody that's an entrepreneur at some point is wanted to quit.

Is one to give up?

You know.

The thing that I always kind of lean into when I think about that is there's this really good book by Seth Godin Caught the Dip, and it talks about if you think about your career, you just think about doing anything important. There's a moment when you say you're going to do something, and it's almost like you're on a cliff and you're on this cliff and everybody's congratulating, Amen, congratulations you graduated from college or you and now you're starting this business. Everybody's happy for you. And then you got to step off that cliff. And when you step off that cliff, you're in the work. And nobody sees you when you're in the work. Nobody sees you when you're in the dip. Nobody sees you when you're dealing with some shit at two o'clock in the morning, and you're like, man, why am I even doing this? And that's the moment where you got to decide do I want to quit or do I want to keep going. I tell people all the time, there's nothing wrong with quitting if you don't want what's on the other side. But if you know you want what's on the other side, you got to keep going and you got to push through in those kind of moments. Throw when you do get it, because it happens to all of us, Like what keeps you going? What's your motivation? What's your kind of north star that keeps you inspired and going to build this thing?

Ibby Rogie Bro.

I think the thing that lingers in my head the most now that if I stop, someone else is going to take the credit for what we already started.

Say it again, I like that one, not like Bro.

Like we go back to what I was saying earlier.

There were zero HBCUs in twenty twenty that had gaming and esports programs. I know for a fact that community started and helped majority of the HBCUs start the gaming esports programs. So like, for me, it's like, it's not objective. I'm sorry, that's not subjective. It's very much like objective fact. And I'm like, there's no way that we're going to start this and then let some third party company go raise ten million off of a deck idea to then monetize it off of this community that they had no connection to in the beginning. So again, when I look at our story, I actually watched Bob Johnson's story a lot because what Bob Johnson did, he was like, Yo, people of color want to see themselves on TV. They want to see themselves and events in magazines. We are the culture. There's no distribution network for this culture. Let me build this thing called Black Entertainment Television. And what I'm saying is is that CXM is going to be that exact same thing for the genre that we're focused on for gaming and anime. But these same topics is like I always call them the three letter acronyms, be ET, V, H one, MTV, CNN, you know TN, T. You go to T and T for high action movies, right, You're going to go to CXM for all things culture, music, gaming, anime, upcoming releases. The fact that Tecans did a collaboration with Nike phone posits and they're doing, like, where's that information being really spoken about? Where the events that follow those, where are the community programs that support those? And I'm like, that is what our mission vision is through everything that we're doing.

Yeah, now, where do you kind of see the future of you know, esports and you know HBCU sports and just gaming in general.

Right, Like again where everybody's thinking about.

You know, obviously virtual reality is going to be a thing coming up soon and just even more immersive games and experiences. But you know, if you had to kind of you know, I would say put on your Apple Vision Pro but those got discontinued, you know what I mean. But if you can kind of see around the corner, like what does gaming look like in the next five ten.

Years, I think gaming will look like traditional sports. You say five or ten years, Yeah, what I just said is I think fifteen, twenty, twenty five, thirty years down the road.

So that's what was like. I think five or ten years is going to look similar to now.

Right, You're going to have more events like the Kickback and like dream Con, and it's going to be more of those. But when you're talking about the development again, I was so thankful for my program at Georgia State because it talks you through how sports were developed. I think a lot of times we look at sports now are like this is what has always been no, Like, at one point in time, it was literally fifteen people watching what is now the NBA, and it shed right, and like that has now grown and developed to franchises and billion dollars this and star athletes and shoe endorsement did but that has been If you look at the NFL or baseball, that is a one hundred year time span, right, And so I think over time those communities, especially the interest of younger generations, you know, I think our early mistake. We talked about mistakes earlier. I think my earliest mistake is that we market it too old, right. We try to convince active college students and people that were recent alum that gaming is cool. But respectfully, we missed the boat, right, gaming was just that pastime. But no, the younger, the kids in high school and middle school, they're the ones that are looking at the feasibility of trying to be these creators. And like tuning in the live streams was like, we really missed the market the mark on our marketing super early because we just went for the wrong crowd. We try what everyone else was initially attempting, was hey, let's take traditional sports model in the traditional culture marketing model and like, let's just drop that into gaming, and I'm like, now that doesn't work. It has to be grassroots and developed from the ground up and then incremental investments over time that then actually lead to a program that's then scaled year over year over year. So the answer to the question more directly is like, when I look at the future, it's that it's academic programs, is community programs. Again, I look at it no different than sport. There's gonna be your LA fitness basketball group. There's going to be your intermural clubs. There's gonna be professional leagues, they're gonna be international leagues. There's going to be you know, special events. Like all of this is kind of just be wrapped around this banner of just gaming, but again not as hand on the controller as an interest point and a passion pillar to actually now say gaming is cool. You gotta think bro For us for the longest time, if you was in a gaming anime, it was black is a nerd?

You lame, you.

Whack you out of pocket. You know, don't sit over here. What we're doing is saying like, no, all that stuff now is in the mix. Yeah, like it's not excluded in its own thing. But matter of fact, we're not trying to join you. We're just trying to bring all this stuff over here. Like we're not trying to make who the forgotten about black people were cool? They've been cool. From our perspective, y'all are late to the party, like gaming's not late. Hip hop is late, like entertainment is late, like we've been doing games deft jen Vendetta came out twenty years ago. So yeah, just as an example, but we at that time wasn't tapped into that as a means of mediums for like revenue generation for our community.

We just spent money and consumed it. So we're trying to put that on this head.

And you think that, you think that again kind of staying true to that and also again like finding those like not growing up, the kind of growing down in the audiences. That was probably one of the bigger tactics that that really kind of helped y'all be more successful. You think there was other kind of inflection points that helped the business kind of through. Like I always again like when you kind of look back on it, you can always think about the moments. Always makes sense when you look back on correct, you know, So what were some of those kind of moments, of those inflection points that you know, you can kind of see the growth of the difference.

So I think it was after we did the first one or two years of HBCU Esports and in the middle. So the thing about ESPCU Esports is one hundred percent virtual, so the kids are competing at their dorms, We're doing a live stream out of Atlanta. But in the second year we ended up doing like a small in person activation in Washington, d C. With all the local d and v HBCUs and just seeing that in person camaraderie and kids cheering like the Hampton kids cheering for Howard over Morgan. I'm like, nah, bro, this is real, Like its actually more real than I thought. And the step be next after that was all right cool. When you look out in the world, there really is no gaming collective for people of color, right, Like, So we launched this initiative about three years ago, two years ago called Big Creator. Initially it was like, let's bring together small creators and help them become larger creators. But we got twelve hundred rugs strengths and twelve months. So now like even on paper, we own the largest We are sincely organized the largest digital gaming collective in North America, right, like twelve hundred people that are active, and these twelve hundred have their own community. So like now we're trying to figure out like all right, cool, well how do we layer the big creators into our marketing strategies? So like we're just trying to find all like so many different ways to get our community involved, and no pun intended, we ask community or just the quarterback, but like the real players are these independent groups throughout North America. Trap Sushi here, Trap Sushi in Montana, the Trap Sushi in Mississippi, the community in Tennessee that none of them know, they know about each other, but there's no one bringing them together, so or like like let's just try and organize this thing.

No, yeah, first you got to kind of collect the dots and then you kind of connect the dots. And I think when when you do that, you kind of see these new opportunities and nuances like oh yeah, if I connect these this group of this group or you know, this group of this, all of a sudden a new kind of opportunity. But that means you got to kind of keep yourself open and flexible, right, And you know, Jeff Bezos has a great quote that I love. It's like, be stubborn on your vision, but be flexible on the details, correct because you don't know how this stuff is going to work out, and sometimes an opportunity kind of you know, pops up that you didn't expect, or you know, something happens. Has that ever happened where you know, you all kind of went into something, you know, thinking there was going to be a moment, then all of a sudden, either a celebrity pulled up or just something happened in that moment where you're like, wow, I didn't even realize this, but we're riding this wave now.

Yeah, man, it's it's crazy, bro Like.

Even so you spoke about a little earlier, so like I would say, like, there's two moments that were defining for us, and then there was a Seleverty like moment that kind of came out of nowhere, something that also kind of put us on the map. In twenty twenty one, we were one of the marketing partners for the release of the New Space Jam movie. So like our responsibility was we actually created a gaming experience on the Purple carpet at the screening of Space Jam Out and at Los Angeles. So it gave us like a ton of visibility to like Lebron and like all the casts in them. So we're like it was a eye opening and say, like all right, cool, there's a lot of feasibility not only in gaming but in Hollywood and what's happening. So since that moment, we started working with like movie studios and we do screenings in Atlanta, like with Dune two was the most recent one we did. But with Dune there's a game, so like now the studios are like, we're creating these gaming movie like experiences, which was like really interesting. Last year we gave away a million dollars with Mountain due to HBCU students and two different tournaments, one for Mortal Kombat, one for Call of Duty. And I'm like, when you start four years ago, like I'm not thinking that, hey, there's ever going to be a chance for literally sixteen black kids to compete for half of a million dollars in these tournaments. Like Roder just graduated nine years ago. I was like, bro, like we just I barely just missed the shit, you know, Like in what's going on. But even like with the Kickback last year, you know, to your point of why, I say, like everything that's just supposed to happen, how it was supposed to happen, what was for use for you? We had a headlining artist, unfortunate things happened forty eight hours before the show had to pull out within forty eight hours. Who secured the new artist? Nli Choppa. Come to find out, Chapa is a huge gamer. He's a huge streamer. You've seen a lot of the content recently with him on Kai stream and then because of his affiliation, and he brought out a lot of other talent that he's cool with that's in Atlanta from Memphis. So like we had like this mini festival concert and it's like it all worked out right. So to your point is like you know what I was gonna say is the original talent would have been great, but we had Choppa. He's facetiming Kai live on stage at the Kickback right. So now for the first time ever, I'm seeing our events like going viral in the Shade room and so I was like, all right, now that's when I knew. October twelfth, twenty twenty three, I was like, nah, we got something, yeah, and we just got to figure out how to structure this and organize it. But more more importantly, how do we have business process to sustain it? Because we're not fun it bro all, we're still bootstrapping this whole thing and still trying to make everything happen. Bro.

Hey man, y'all doing good. Y'all, boots trap the man. I see the acquisitions out here, I see the moves that happen.

Kind of do some stuff.

Now, let me ask you this.

Let's let's switch gears for me a second, as a as a gamer, because you do play games.

Also in war Zone Heavy.

If you could create a game, like, what game would you create? What game needs to exist? If you could make any video game you wanted? What video game needs to exist?

In your opinion?

And that's a crazy question, bro, like this heavy question.

I don't know because I mean, Rotch, you like everything I would want I think exists. Cause again, when I play games, I was telling you a little earlier, right, I play first person shooter, so Halo Battlefield, Call of Duty.

For some reason, I feel like I would personally want it.

I wouldn't want it for the perception it would create in America, but I would want like a Call of Duty based in like inner cities. Okay, but I'd already like even saying that I don't like the concept from a marketing standpoint. I just like the concept of the game itself and just being able to play in like neighborhoods and just like a different twist. But every version of a basketball game exists, NBA Street and one I was really big and like the Tony Hawk games growing up, like the action sports series SSX tricky, I mean, real cheer like I don't know, but let me say this.

I will.

Actually I have one so something we're talking about with one of our partners with the Trap Sushi team, But I would love to see an urban style fighting game, so def Jam Vendetta. But that's like too urban but not like too fantasy, but like right in the middle with like a hip hop soundtrack.

Okay, I'm with it.

So I don't know what it is, but what I do know is that if we were to create a game, I would test it within our community of gamers, like with a beautiful thing.

So like I think that would be really cool.

Is like you have this urban style teching like Street fighter like game, but it's all about urban So for lack of better words, I would just call it the Boondocks fighting game. If we're just call it like a thing, it would be a Boondock style fighting game.

Yeah, just called the boon Docks. It's like the boon Docks, you know, I.

See my boy ar Oh fun fact, so I grew up in Columbia, Maryland. Aar magrutis from Columbia, Maryland. So like Boon Docks, iran higher than anything. So it's call TV right there. That's quality TV right there. If Aaron would allow us BRO to do it, I was like, Bro, let's send a partnership right now, we're bringing the developers, we have the community.

Like that thing will go absolutely crazy.

Well, Uncle rukus character, Bro, what special special powers like saying bad words that hurts your feelings and like your health just diminishes or something like that. But no, like that's that's that's what I think it was. It would be something similar to the fighting style of the Boondocks with that anime feel with hip hop sound.

Man.

I'm not even gonna lie.

Man, if I can make any game I want to make, I fell down the the GTA rabbit hole for like online, like watching a T Grizzly and all those guys, and I'm like, man, we just need like an Atlanta GTA server, Like just recreate Atlanta in here, call out the game. You know, you can go to a Falcons game. You can get in a fight fit in the fight with a Saints.

Fan in the Falcons game.

You know what I'm saying. You got to you got to go defeat the Varsity. You know, you gotta go eat at the varsitay and eat it. I can just see it right now. The water Boys.

I got to take the.

Jr Crickets to Alpharetta within fifteen minutes, like crazy side missions and stuff like you.

Got to get somewhere.

But it's traffic, like I'm telling you, like Atlanta GTA game would go crazy because Atlanta culture travels very very well.

So let me say this.

So a big part of what we do now is like to your point GTA service Fortnite, you can build games. I also like to do opportunities in every chance I get. I was like, well, let's do it. I'm telling you right now, like it's it's something that's very feasible. Like we have the development like we build in game right now in Fortnite as an example. Yeah, right, So the idea like that's on our roadmap is GTA six.

I mean, I don't know what it's going to look like.

Community is one hundred percent going to own a server in the GTA environment create many games. So like for us, that's just like a big part of our down the road strategy is also having a studio, because like it's nice that I get to play other studios games in my leagues. But the grandest idea is that if I have this community who's been playing non diverse owned games their whole life and love it, Let's make games that people like us know and love, Let's develop them, let's put them in our leagues, let's put them in our events, and like let's run it that way. So like community studios is something like maybe two, three, four years down the road. But when I think about the future of what we're going to be doing and stuff like that.

Well, look, I'm gonna tell you right now.

If there's a you know, GTA six server the community's working on one, want to butter to get a piece of the action.

I try to get in the action you know what I'm saying. I tell you right now, we need this. We need this Atlanta version.

It's going to be crazy now that that would be sick.

Hey man, So look before we get out of here, just one last thing, like, what's some advice that that you either go.

Buy and that you kind of remember.

Like I know you were talking about the poem earlier, but like, what's just a piece of advice that you know has been really helpful for you along this journey.

Yeah, so I would definitely say, like, y'all should definitely google. I think you just google. Don't quit Alpha filef for the poem just pops up on Google.

No read that. I'm trying to like that.

Poe is crazy, right, But my second job, the job at the King Queen Building, it consulting the boss, Robert Pastor, crazy enough for even to this day he sits on the board of our nonprofit. So like people for my past life are still very involved in like are current And he always just say the same thing sticks in my head.

Be quick, don't be in a hurry.

Be quick, don't be in a hurry now, Like that's kind of been in the back of my head this whole time. Is like you'll see a lot of other startups headlines raising this, going here, doing that, but a lot of them stick, a lot of them don't. And I just think for me, especially living in Atlanta, Atlanta's confusing, bro, people got money?

Do they not got money? Is it shaking? Is it not? Like you can get caught up in that and this?

When I get caught in my own like headspace, I just say the same thing, Yo, be quick, don in a hurry, stay the court, like stay the course. And that's the one thing I always share the same people ask the same question on most podcasts to say the same thing, Yo, just you're good, Just be fast, Just do not rush because that rush process where people make a lot of mistakes. Every time you start owning a lot of money, they start losing a lot of things that were once theirs.

Just be quick, but don't be in a hurry. And man, I love it. Look before we get out of here, Ryan, like, just tell folks how can they find you? How can they support community media? How can they get involved with these different events all got going on?

Yeah for sure.

So I would say all of our events and things are on our website. So I would say to follow us on Socialist community dot co, so that's on all social platforms. That's also our website as well, so if people want to check that out. But for me parsonally my Instagram and Twitter. Ryan ran it up. So now I'd love to connect if there's any people that a listen to that are in the game, and if you have kids that you feel like, well, while my kid always on the game, got a solution for that, academic programs, the whole nine, So definitely tap in. And we have a lot of events. Our next big event in Metro Atlanta. I know this is outside of Atlanta. This covers outside of Atlanta, but our next big event in Metro Atlanta will be the first week in December, so more information there.

But we'll be talking about all of that on our social platforms over the next few months.

And just let people know because community needs spelled like they think it spells, let them know how to find it now.

Yeah yeah, yeah, you know that's crazy to hear other facts. So it's c X, you and I Y.

And actually I'll address that really quick because people usually say like why X. So again, going back to my early point of when they launched the Esports you had to have a computer lab to be in it.

So basically gaming.

I should have said this in the very beginning, bro, if you just look at it, gaming is divided black and I'm sorry, white and Asian, European PC console like PC mainly minority families are mainly consoles. Right. That's kind of like the great divide of this conversation. So X is the only button on an Xbox PlayStation, Nintendo and a keyboard. So for us, we're trying to bring all this stuff together versus looking at things in segments. So that is the X and Y the X so see X MMBU and I T Y not traditional spelling.

Community.

The level of intentionality behind that is just chef's kiss.

Man.

I appreciate you, yo, man.

Look, thanks for coming out, man, congratulations and everything. Can't wait to see the rest of success. And you know, y'all make sure y'all support community.

Media and all they do.

Yep, thank y'all.

All right, y'all, that's the pot.

You've been listening to buttteron nomics and I'm your host, Brandon Butler comments feedback. Want to be a part of the show, send us an email today at Hello at butterdomics dot com. Butter Nomics is produced in Atlanta, Georgia at iHeartMedia by Ramsey, with marketing and support from Queen and Nike. Music provided by mister Hanky. If you haven't already, hit that subscribe button and never missed an episode, and be sure to follow us on all our social platforms at butter dot atl Listen to button Nomics on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts

Butternomics - The Business of Culture

Butternomics: The Business of Culture takes a deep dive into the intersection of business and cultur 
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