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While the global pandemic has started to wind down and more people are getting vaccinated, COVID-19 is still forcing many people to stay at home to stay safe and healthy. As people continue to interact with one another virtually, they continue to look for new ways to engage with their family and friends online. While bingo has slowly been building a strong following on college campuses over the last few years, this activity has also had a lot of success online during the pandemic.

In March 2021, Boston Sports Partners (BSP) partnered with an internationally known hospital that is based in Boston to host a virtual bingo event on Friday, March 12th. The goal of this project was to raise as much money as possible for an important charity that is associated with the hospital.

Challenge
After completing a successful Fall e-Sports virtual fundraising event that BSP conducted on behalf of the hospital, the hospital reached out to BSP again as they were looking for a different way to broaden its audience to raise awareness and generate more funds to support cancer research. The charity partnered with BSP to brainstorm athletes who would be interested and available to participate as a bingo host during this virtual event. It was also important to ensure that this host would be able to interact with children and adults and had the cache at the local, regional, and national levels to help secure more funds for the charity.

Our Approach
BSP played an extremely important role as the agency reached out to NFL superstar Rob Gronkowski, who is currently a tight end for the Super Bowl Champion Tampa Bay Buccaneers, to gauge his interest in being a host. Rob responded immediately that he wanted to participate as the NFL season was ending and this charity’s mission was important to him as well. We also asked Rob if his partner, Camille Kostek, a TV host and SI swimsuit model, wanted to join as well. She was thrilled to have an opportunity to participate as well.

We worked directly with Rob and Camille leading up to the event to help them promote their involvement as bingo hosts, make sure they were prepared to host the event, and ensure that all the client’s needs were met before the event took place.

Results
Due to BSP’s symbiotic partnership with the hospital, the two sides conducted thorough planning leading up to the event that resulted in a total of more than $67,000 raised for the hospital’s charity. We worked with Camille and Rob to create a post on Facebook beforehand to promote the event and the video has had more than 14,000 views. BSP and the hospital also worked with Camille and Rob to create a thank you video after the event ended. The video was posted on Instagram and it had more than 33,000 likes!

BSP can help your organization create a specialized program – either virtually or in-person – to support your business strategies and goals.

Contact at info@bostonsportspartners.com or visit the website at BostonSportsPartners.com.

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Twitch has become the global leader of live streaming platforms for gamers and esports. There are almost four million gamers who stream on Twitch, but we highly recommend you take a look at Dena (Dee) Rock, a.k.a BBXH.

Dee’s gaming career on Twitch started in March 2016. On top of working her full-time, 40-hour per week office job, where she was a purchasing agent for a company that builds helicopter simulators, Dee would stream a mobile game called Clash Royale after work and on the weekends. It was definitely a grind.

Breaking through in September 2016, Dee got the opportunity to cast/host a Clash Royale tournament in Toronto called Northern Arena. The event was an amazing experience for her and she knew this was the industry in which she wanted to work. Following the event, Dee was presented with more and more opportunities to work live esports events. Eventually, with all the traveling, it meant she ran out of vacation hours at her office job so she decided to invest her time fully into the world of gaming.

With these gigs, Dee started to earn an income on top of what she earned from streaming each day. When she started streaming full time, Dee switched from what might be deemed as a “safe” career to a more risky one.

For Dee, her love for gaming began at a young age when she was playing popular Sega Genesis games, including Everquest and Sims. It is no surprise that streaming full-time and being a Twitch broadcaster was the right career choice for her. Since then, Dee has held several more roles that include being a host, shout-caster, interviewer, and analyst.

Dee’s unexpected journey has led her to meet some amazing people and travel the world doing what she loves. During her time as a professional gamer, she has contributed to many campaigns and charities such as St. Jude’s and Save The Children, via live streaming and live event hosting. So far, her proudest moment was hosting the CCGS World Finals 2017 in London.

I recently had the opportunity to ask Dee some questions about her career in esports and where she thinks the industry is headed.

What is your day-to-day like and what is it like to work in the industry?
Monday through Friday, I stream for about seven hours. My schedule is 7:30 a.m. – 2 p.m. EST. Sometimes I stream on the weekends if there is an event that I am in or a collaboration stream event taking place. Three of those days during the week I will wake up at 4:30 a.m. to workout at the gym before I go live, while other days I wake up at 6 a.m.. Throughout the day I keep engaged with my audience through social media channels including Discord, Instagram, and Twitter. If I have any projects I am working on or have been hired to do, I work on those during the afternoons. This could be anything from filming a tutorial video for companies to updating my stream graphics. During the evenings I usually relax except on Wednesdays when I play in an adult soccer league.

Working in this industry can be a rollercoaster. You never really know how your day is going to go. New and exciting work seems to pop up randomly. For example, sometimes a generous donor shows up to the stream and drops a crazy donation or even trolls come into the chat to try to get under your skin. It could be anything!

How do you feel about the industry at large? Has your sentiment changed from before to now?
This industry is constantly growing. It is becoming more and more relevant, especially during this pandemic. More people are working or staying at home so I find that more people come to live streams now for social interaction. It really is incredible! It gives us a way to bond without having to come in contact with one another. It also gives people the opportunity to watch competitive entertainment beyond the world of sports. With gaming, players can compete remotely all over the world.

My sentiment has definitely changed throughout the years. I admittedly did not know what to expect in the beginning when I started streaming as my new career. It was still such a new and uncharted industry. Explaining to people who are not familiar with the industry about what I do for a living was a challenge. The question is always “Oh, so you get paid to play video games all day?!” Answer: “Heh, yes and no.” It’s still a new concept, but it now is becoming more mainstream. I almost felt embarrassed explaining what I did at first. Now, I’m proud of it. I’m excited to share what I do.

Is it everything you expected, and would you recommend the career path to others and why?
This career has completely been more than I ever expected and it has taken me to wonderful places. I didn’t realize it would go beyond playing games at my house!! That said, I’ve had my ups and downs throughout the past four years. I’ve had to grow some thick skin and learn how to adapt when I don’t see progress. I’m still always learning.

I would recommend anyone interested in streamer as a career to try it. The beauty is that anyone can start part time once they have a setup. It just takes dedication and consistency. The perks are that streamers can set their own schedule, work from home, and get to meet people they’d probably never meet! You never know where the journey will take you.

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By Anna Boyle, Social Media Intern

With a global pandemic that is forcing many people to stay at home to stay safe and healthy, virtual events have replaced most in-person events for the immediate future. One type of virtual event that has seen a spike in interest is virtual gaming or esports. Sports fanatics have turned to esports as a way to engage with one another through gaming while keeping it COVID safe.

It is no surprise that streamers and the online community are notably generous as they like to donate their time and money to important causes. Boston Sports Partners (BSP) wanted to engage with the streamer community as the sports marketing agency was partnering with a well-known Boston-based charity to host their first event, a charity streaming event to support a internationally known hospital that is based in Boston. The streamer weekend event was held Friday, October 30 through Sunday, November 1, 2020.

The streamer weekend event was the first time that the charity had hosted an esports-focused event. The weekend event introduced a massive audience of people who play video games to learn more about this Boston-based charity. The viewers were encouraged to make donations to the charity’s Tiltify page to benefit the lifesaving mission of the hospital.

Challenge
The charity is always looking for new and innovative ways to broaden its audience to raise awareness and generate more funds to support cancer research. Due to the COVID outbreak, the charity had to be creative with designing virtual events that will raise awareness for its mission and to secure support from new and existing donors. The charity reached out to Boston Sports Partners with the idea to work together to create an online event centered around esports. After months of research and planning, the two companies collaborated on a weekend-long charity streamer event with professional athletes and well-known streamers.

Our Approach
BSP played an extremely important role as the agency needed to pull together a target list of streamers and professional athletes who competed in esports and might want to participate in the charity stream. After the research was complete, BSP started reaching out to streamers directly, or their agents, to gauge their interest in participating. BSP was able to secure interest from 10 gamers who wanted to donate their time and stream during the weekend fund raising event. While BSP was recruiting streamers, the agency also designed the overall structure of the event as well as the timing and slots for each of the gamers. Each streamer was given a two-hour block to stream and raise as much funds as possible. The streamers played from 4 p.m. ET to 10 p.m. ET throughout the weekend.

The work continued from there as BSP also reached out to and received interest from HyperX to become a sponsor for the event. The company provided a generous array of peripherals that proved to be of great interest and helped to increase engagement with donors and viewers.

Results
Due to BSP’s thorough planning leading up to the event, a total of $15,712.77 was raised during the streamer weekend. Some of the highlights from the event included:
• BSP secured interest from Los Angeles Chargers’ running back Austin Ekeler who opened the weekend festivities as he hosted a viewing on Friday afternoon with a Rocket League Tournament among his viewers to raise funds.
• BSP secured Out of the Park, who hosted a special event that looked at the greatest Red Sox teams of all time and the agency recruited former MLB player Steve Lyons to cast with OOTP and talk about his experiences on playing in Boston.
• The other streamers who participated in Streamer Weekend included, BBXH, Jacob Fullerton, Melissa Posada, Katie Bedford, MagicalPearl, JonSmiff, and Oxygen Esports streamers FoxA and ILaXInG.

BSP can help your organization create a personalized program to support your business strategies and help you connect with the esports community in the future.

Contact at info@bostonsportspartners.com or visit the website at BostonSportsPartners.com.

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As Boston Sports Partners (BSP) continues to engage contacts and talk with industry professionals, time and time again we hear from people that we should find a way to find a niche in esports.

One of the first things that we wanted to do was grow our roster of talent within the esports industry. Over the last couple of months, we have welcomed two esports experts who are well-equipped to help us succeed in this industry. Tim Kelleher is a young up-and-coming esports manager and consultant. During his senior year in college, he was hired as Head of North American Operations for a Belgian organization known as Cynetic Esports. During his time at the company, he recruited one stream team of eight people and four competitive teams (CSGO, PUBG, Fortnite, Overwatch). After he founded his own startup called Dreadnought Esports. Recruiting yet again for CSGO (two teams), Fortnite, PUBG, League of Legends and Overwatch. Between the two organizations, he also negotiated and signed a total of 10 partners.

Dena Rock, known as Twitch streamer “BBXH” recently joined the Boston Sports Partners team as a partner and talent. She has been gaming on Twitch since 2016 and since discovering her niche in the gaming world, she has held several roles including being a host, shout-caster, interviewer, and analyst. During her time as a professional gamer, she has contributed to many campaigns and charities such as St. Jude’s and Save The Children, via live streaming and live event hosting, In working with BSP, Dena will provide expert industry insight and continue to grow her brand in the gaming world.

Boston Sports Partners can work with companies, non-profits, colleges or universities to develop esports-related events or tournaments in authentic and valuable ways. Business Insider wrote an article on the Esports Ecosystem Report 2020 stating that investors are starting to pay attention to esports trends. There is an expected nine percent compound annual growth rate for esports between 2019 and 2023 [Business Insider]. According to the report, investments are on the rise from private equity firms and venture capitalists in the industry. The industry is slowly but surely expanding and becoming more mainstream on a daily basis.

Boston Sports Partners had a successful experience when it sponsored the Mythic Cup 6 in May 2020, which was a North American esports tournament. The total views for the weekend event surpassed 50,000 and more than 38,000 of those were unique views. One of the reasons for this success was due to the marketing strategy that was implemented to promote the event across social media platforms. Boston Sports Partners plans to partner with more companies to host tournaments in the future.

Boston Sports Partners will help you create events, opportunities and partnerships if your business wants to be involved with esports. Feel free to contact us at info@bostonsportspartners.com to discuss further.

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With the world’s current health crisis, people are spending more time inside than ever. Aside from binging “The Office” for the 10^th time through, there are fewer entertainment options with professional sports virtually grounding to a halt. However, as the saying goes, “When one door closes, another opens.” Boston Sports Partners (BSP) saw this opportunity and chose to step through that door and start something new.

Not knowing how long COVID-19 will last or its effects on the planet, BSP looked to jump into esports as quickly as possible with a few goals in mind: 1) give people a competitive event to watch and be involved in, 2) help grow the esports and CS:GO community, and 3) BSP wanted to “dip a toe in the water” with the ultimate objective of having a meaningful position and long-term involvement in esports.

There were several things we knew already. We wanted to do CS, a well-established game and a former esport of the year. We did not want to make it for professional gamers, not because we dislike the pros but in order for the community to grow, all Tier-1, 2, and 3 teams need opportunities to grow and compete. We decided on a $2,000 winner-take-all tournament, the title being “Mythic Cup 6 Presented by Boston Sports Partners”.

Going into the tournament, we expected solid yet modest numbers in terms of viewership.  We were hoping for more than 600+ average viewers and 30,000+ total viewers. Previous Mythic Cups have averaged more than 1,000+ viewers with total viewers being anywhere from 60,000-100,000+. However, we knew there were two factors that would suppress our numbers somewhat. First, ESL was streaming their Online Qualifiers for ESL One: Road to Rio (their Major in Rio expected to be in November) at the same time as MC6 for EU, NA, Asia, and Oceania. All these qualifiers were between $10,000 and $115,000. This is truly a David vs Goliath situation, but in this case, they are fighting for the same thing, viewers. We were confident that there would still be a significant interest. The second challenge we faced was that the tournament was being held on Mother’s Day, but we thought that viewers would be free later in the day. We teamed up with Erik “Fl0m” Flom, owner of Mythic, Austin “Boggsnator” Bogdanovich, Donnie “Voo” Par, and JRT to support us in streaming the matches, as needed. All of these partners are well established in the CS community. Erik, for example, was able to stream three games and averaged an estimated 2,600 viewers. He eventually “raided” (essentially moving his stream and viewers to another channel) the main stream on Mythic League’s channel. All other channels averaged 100+ during the preliminary matches.

The finals of the tournament were Under 21 vs. Swedish Canadians. It was a matchup that never should have happened. This is not because one team lacked the skill but because Under 21 had lost in their first matchup versus Polar Ace. However, Polar Ace had technical issues and were therefore unable to play in the next round, forfeiting the previously won match and bringing Under 21 back from the dead to head into the Finals after beating Recon 5. Map 1 was Mirage and looked to be SC’s from the beginning going up 11-4 to close out the second half 5-3 and taking Mirage. Up 1 to 0, they went on to Nuke, again looking like they were going to win quickly being up 10-5 at the half. However, U21 decided to put some doubt in our minds by winning six straight and a couple more to make it competitive and exciting at 13-15 in favor of SC. However, SC brought it back together to take the map, matchup, the Cup, and $2,000.

Additionally, we would like thank Mythic League and HyperX for their support. Mythic League provided us with a server, caster (JRTTV), producer (Allo), and a solid structure to host the tournament, while HyperX provided us with 12 peripherals (4x Cloud Stinger Core Wireless Headsets, 4x Alloy Origins Core Keyboards, 4x Pulsefire FPS Pro Mice) which were used for giveaways and were highly sought after by viewers. Out of the 12 giveaways, six of them had more than 100 people enter to win. In total, we saw upwards of 38,000+ unique views, 50,000+ total views, and in the finals, we peaked at 1,600 viewers while averaging 800+, and we still had 720 viewers after the final giveaway was done (roughly 20 minutes after the end of the final map).

BSP was proud to partner with Mythic on this, our first formal dive into the esports landscape.  I’m excited to be at the helm of our gaming division as we continue to make our mark in the space and help fill our mission to Build Brands, Build Relationships, and Build Business for individuals and organizations who recognize the power of esports.

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