Semmler: “We don’t want esports to keep going along the way it is right now”
“We’re looking at setting up a trim machine. No fat on this beast”, mused Semmler. “There aren’t any extra frills, there isn’t anything that we don’t need to put the project together.”
The French-American caster is fresh from his return from the Overwatch League and back where he belongs, in CS:GO, and ready for a new challenge. FLASHPOINT is where he’s ended up, and he’s looking to build something “lean” in the pursuit of profitability.
“At some point you have to put a tourniquet on. At some point you have to figure out how it’s going to work. Behind the scenes many of these esports orgs are just haemorrhaging money - at some point you have to come up with a model that’s actually going to be profitable.”
Profitability is the main talking point with FLASHPOINT, and their spokespeople are keen to talk about building a future for esports.
“We don’t want esports to keep going along the way it is right now,” declared Semmler, but was keen to remind people that the buy-in of the league is “when compared to [esports orgs’] operating costs, not a huge sum of money”.
It’s not just the teams who will benefit financially, though.
“There’s a lot of focus on the teams, but there’s also a tremendous amount of focus on the players from our perspective. They get the biggest rev[enue] share across esports, as far as we know.”
As well as financial benefits, FLASHPOINT want to improve CSGO as a whole, and don’t want to “swallow up the calendar year the way MTG has attempted to do”.
“We want open competition as we think it’s beneficial for everybody involved in the industry. It pushes standards up... If it weren’t for competing leagues trying to push the envelope event after event, we’d probably still be sitting there looking at GOTV thinking “hey that’s cool!”.”
One thing we might see from Overwatch was Twitch “passes”, where viewers can pay to streamline and control their viewing experience. “I can’t speak on anything, but I'm a big fan” was the caster’s response upon questioning, with a wry smile to boot.
Semmler was keen to compliment Valve for their non-involvement in FLASHPOINT - having dealt with the overbearing nature of Blizzard in Overwatch, we imagine it’s a refreshing change.
“I’m perfectly fine operating in a space where valve just let everyone compete and do their thing, and not try to step in and intervene.
“It’s good that they keep their game and we keep our space.”
Image via BLAST.