Nimble with modest expectations.

It’s the best way to sum up Panda Global , an esports team that bills itself as the premier organization for 1v1 games. In its quest to become the king of games like Super Smash Bros. , Mortal Kombat, and Shadowverse, the team has taken a different approach when compared to organizations like Cloud9 and Team Liquid by focusing exclusively on non-team games. But in zeroing in on smaller communities, Panda Global has charted a unique path that no other team is taking.

For example, instead of hunting down celebrity investors, it found a YouTuber. Instead of buying players from other teams, it recruited up-and-comers and groomed them to be top-level players. And instead of putting a guy in a panda suit, it created its own anime-girl mascot that took over the team’s Twitter account for a week.

Panda Global’s approach flies in the face of just about every esports convention on the market. Notions of seeking large chunks of capital investment or jumping into the next hot game with $100M USD prize pots aren’t incentives for Panda Global. Instead, it likes doing things its own way, and it’s been working well so far.

“Why does it matter if Shaquille O’Neal buys a part of my esports company? Shaquille O’Neal doesn’t know my games,” CEO of Panda Global and physician Dr. Alan Bunney, MD said.

And it seems that brands have taken notice of Panda Global’s off-kilter approach. Panda Global was the first esports team to land a sponsorship deal with Geico. And the team has also gone on to find other non-endemic sponsors like Zippo, with its line of electronic hand warmers, and Japanese anime distributor Funimation — best known for popularizing Dragon Ball Z in the west.

Bunney has strong opinions on the current esports industry. He sees a lot of artificial growth and speculation that’s driving teams to make decisions that, in his eyes, don’t make financial sense. For Bunney, his goal is to have a team that’s engaged with its community, and one that he feels can give back to it as well.

In 2018, Panda Global announced that it would be bringing in YouTuber Jacob “Alpharad” Rabon IV as a minority shareholder and the team’s content director. Rabon IV had done creative work with Panda Global in the past but left to continue working on his YouTube channel, which focuses heavily on creating content around Super Smash Bros. Currently, his channel has 1.2 million subscribers. Rabon IV now feels he has the time to focus both on his YouTube channel and his work with Panda Global.

According to Bunney, brand awareness jumped after Rabon IV was brought on, especially with the more casual esports viewer. Rabon IV specifically targeted fans that might not be aware of every individual player, but became general fans of the team.

Credit: Panda Global

One of Rabon IV’s first contributions was to put a voice behind Pan-chan, the affectionately named anime-girl mascot originally conceived by Bunney and General Manager David Wu.

Bunney was unsure of how the community would react, or if it would take to a “waifu” style mascot. To his surprise, she was a huge hit from day one. Not only that, Pan-chan helped translate into increased merchandise sales for the organization.

“We don’t want investors for the sake of investors, and that’s a big difference between us and other esports brands right now; is that a lot of teams are desperate for investors to stay afloat,” Bunney said. “…for us, it’s much more of a decision about longevity, where do we want to go, how do we want to do it. and doing it right. We think a lot of teams don’t do it right.”

At the moment, Bunney feels that there’s a lot of money flowing into esports without the requisite knowledge or know how to capitalize on those investor dollars. This means that teams are burning through cash without considering a long-term strategy.

“The biggest trap to not try and fall into is the one of trusting certain individuals. This is the hardest thing right now,” Bunney said.

Because the industry is so nascent, it’s easy for just about anyone to come in and say they’re an expert — at least, this has been Bunney’s experience. And that’s largely because results take time, which is hard to come by in an industry so new. That has forced Bunney and his team to brainstorm and innovate themselves.

But talking to Bunney, he continually mentions giving back to the community. It seemed like a lot of public relations talk. But it’s not untrue either. Panda Global has done online tournaments to help send amateur players to big events like Evolution in Las Vegas. It also has a stats team that puts out a yearly list of the best Smash players in both Melee and Smash 4, making it the defacto list that journalists and fans go to when discussing current competitive metrics.

The team has also entered the hardware business. Earlier this month it launched a Kickstarter for the Ultimate GameCube Adapter, a dock for the Nintendo Switch that can let competitive Smash players plug in their GameCube controllers and practice on the go.

The KickStarter has launched! Panda Global’s Ultimate GameCube Adapter allows you to play Switch on the go with your GameCube controllers. 4 GC ports, 1 USB 3.0 port, and International Shipping with different bundles. ?https://t.co/vuKIrjdG6o ? Help make this a reality! pic.twitter.com/xPe26yi0mj — Panda Global (@PandaGlobal) January 17, 2019

Panda Global was first approached by Matt Samperi, founder of GearHawk Studio, about the accessory. Samperi is a product design engineer and designed the Ultimate GameCube Adapter. At first, Samperi was looking for feedback, but Bunney was so impressed by the product that he made Samperi an offer.

“I told him ‘you know what, this is exactly what we could do for our community,’” Bunney recalls telling Samperi. “We could create this niche hardware items that really no one’s making, because honestly, the competitive community is small. We’re not important enough for big companies to pay attention to.”

Panda Global has since brought on Samperi to lead its new hardware division. And the team is now looking at other hardware solutions to help its community.

It only took 28 hours for the Ultimate GameCube Adapter to reach its funding goal on Kickstarter, which will launch this summer.

Being able to jump into the hardware business months after unveiling an anime mascot points to the unique way Panda Global operates. The team doesn’t need to answer to a board in California or beg for more investor dollars. Bunney is working within the team’s means and is looking for new ways to approach the esports industry.