Cross-border has always been a topic of attention, and in the e-sports circle, there are many such cross-border people who deserve our attention.
Text / Fu Jiajia
With goalkeeper Zhou Jiaying's five consecutive penalties out of the goal, the Chinese women's ice team defeated the opponent who had not been able to beat the opponent in various regular competitions for 13 years. Looking closely at Zhou Jiaying's career path, this "door god" is actually a cross-border dream representative, before entering professional ice hockey, she worked as a white-collar worker in an investment company on Wall Street in the United States, and later gave up this very decent job for ice hockey. Recently, there has also been one such crossover player in the esports circle that has attracted our attention.
On Feb. 3, North American esports club Dignitas announced a signing with Philadelphia Hawks running back Scott as a backup and content creator for its Rocket League team division. The seemingly unrelated crossover of professional NFL players becoming substitute esports players surprised many people. However, looking at the current "value" and status of e-sports, it is not unusual to attract more and more people to join across borders.
After announcing his joining Dignitas, Scott commented: "Gaming has always been an important part of my life. It has had a big impact on me since I was younger. So gaming isn't just a hobby I love, it's a dream come true that I was able to join Dignitas."
Love and dreams are the first driving force for action. This sentence applies to most crossover scenes, and it is not exaggerated to use Scott. With the continuous development of electronic technology, games relying on various types of electronic devices have gradually risen around the world and become an indispensable spice in the lives of more and more young people. The prevalence of e-sports has made many players who love games have a little bit of professional e-sports dreams in their hearts.
The realization of dreams is inseparable from the support of the framework of the real social environment, otherwise dreams, in addition to dreams and imaginations, will only turn into a scattered sand, along with love buried in the cruel real world. If ten years ago someone had said he was going to do e-sports-related work, ninety percent of his family would have looked at him seriously and told him, "This is a job that only people who don't do their jobs do."
But the rapid development of the e-sports industry around the world has made people see that e-sports is not only a game, but also a profession. Just like Deng Yaping's son said to be an e-sports player a few years ago, she did not strictly curb her son's idea, but took him to understand the criteria for becoming an e-sports player, and then gave him the right to choose freely.
Scott is one of the more social recognition of the value and significance of e-sports, which has firmly established the idea of cross-border dreams of people who once had e-sports dreams. In China, the 2019 LPL Rookie of the Year Zeng Guohao (ID: Meteor) was once a table tennis player, once selected for the national youth team, "League of Legends" was just a hobby for him at the beginning outside of training.
From a table tennis player to a professional e-sports player, Meteor's father initially strongly opposed his decision, but looking at his son's shining in the arena and the bright prospects of e-sports, the father put aside his worries and fully supported his son's professional e-sports path.
For brands and clubs, accepting cross-border people into e-sports brings them a lot of commercial value. The influence of traditional sports stars becoming professional e-sports is far greater than the appointment of a star to become an image spokesperson, after all, the word cross-border is very eye-catching when it is released, so this is a new business cooperation model.
For cross-border e-sports people, the experience and identity that are different from others will also bring them advantages in business endorsement, especially in the case of another industry that is already good enough, e-sports will become the label of "young" and "trend" on cross-border people, helping them to better adapt to and integrate into the "new world" created by the younger generation.
Not long ago, Lakeland University esports head coach Ahman Green was named a brand ambassador for the meal replacement company CTRL. Previously, the esports head coach was a retired NFL player. Interestingly, SKYLER Johnson, the founder of CTRL, is a former founder of Team Envy, a North American esports club, and has a lot of ties to esports.
The founder's experience in the e-sports industry, so that CTRL, which uses meal replacement protein as the main commodity, did not choose traditional sports stars to endorse the brand, but set its sights on Ahman Green, which played crossover, and in return, the brand received double attention from the NFL and e-sports, reaching a 1+1>2 publicity effect.
In today's e-sports circle- and continuously breaking the circle, the social recognition and commercial potential of the e-sports industry will continue to rise, but there is still a considerable part of the e-sports blue ocean waiting for people to develop, and such a market space with rich resources is enough to attract more and more people and brands to develop.
For those who want to join the e-sports industry, whether it is for newcomers or cross-border people, e-sports is just a normal career choice for them, and "not doing business" has long become history.