Team Vitality has made itself known in the realm of console esports, and especially Call of Duty, since 2013. At the end of 2015, they bought a spot in the EU LCS, the European League of Legends elite. Esports Observer reached out to Nicolas Maurer, the team’s owner, to talk about his daily life, struggles, and future plans.

Hi Nicolas! Thanks for giving us the opportunity to speak with you. To start things off, can you explain how you got into owning an esports team?

Before starting the Vitality project, I used to work as a video editor for French TV. Back then, I met Fabien “Neo” Devide. At that time, he was the manager of Corentin “Gotaga” Houssein and Kevin “BroKeN” Georges (French Call of Duty players for team aAa). So he started to talk about this job and esports in general. I listened interestedly, but nothing more.

But then, he brought me to a LAN. I then realized how big of a passion esports can be. I couldn’t believe my eyes. At work, he was just a co-worker—but at LANs, he was jumped on by fans asking for photos and autographs.

As time went by, he told me that he want to create his own team. What bothered him was that most teams would use the popularity of their players in their own interest instead of the interest of the players. He wanted a team that would change that. Wanting to be a part of esports, I joined him.

[perfectpullquote align=”right” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]At work, he was just a co-worker—but at LANs, he was jumped on by fans asking for photos and autographs.[/perfectpullquote]

We started by building around Gotaga, who by then had established himself as one of the best and the most famous French player. We managed to secure more players, and the first sponsors joined. Then, we decided to get into League of Legends. Ever since we got involved in LoL, we entered a whole new dimension, especially concerning the media coverage and interview requests.

As for today, Fabien and myself are dealing with the day-to-day struggles of managing a team. We are still a startup with no employees, but we plan on growing bigger with time.

Why don’t you have employees?

Both Fabien and myself started to pay ourselves only recently. We just couldn’t afford it before. It is very hard to earn money as a team at the moment. Team owners are mostly driven by passion. There are indeed a few teams that manage to earn money like Fnatic, but they are the exception.

The economy revolves around the talent of the players. Except for a few greedy team owners, most of the money goes to players, just like in sports. Players are the ones bringing the money, so they are the ones benefitting from it. Which is completely normal.

What is the difference between managing a console team and a computer team?

PC esports has been around for a longer time. The community is more professional and serious. Console esports is much more messy. It is less organized. But player issues remain the same. You have to take care of players so that they can focus solely on playing. They are young and don’t want to worry about things like sponsoring and administration. So owning a team often looks like babysitting.

[perfectpullquote align=”right” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]So owning a team often looks like babysitting.[/perfectpullquote]

The main problem for consoles is that game developers are less interested in their esports scene. Most of them don’t understand esports. Now that they hear everywhere how much money there is to make, they’re starting to get involved. But they often end up doing everything wrong.

Though, that isn’t true for all of them, RainbowSix has a great approach for example, but developers like EA took a lot of time to understand what needs to be done. EA could have done so many great things, but they decided to go for rentability of the FIFA Ultimate Team instead. I think they are finally coming around, but it will take time for them to catch up.

How does the daily life of a team owner look like?

I don’t know if my daily life is anywhere close to the one of other teams’. In my case, especially after we entered the LCS, it’s all about troubleshooting: take calls, connect people, speak to sponsors, answer quadrillions of mails and journalist requests. We would like to recruit so we can take a step back to think about the future, but we can’t afford it yet.

The player salaries in League of Legends are very high. It takes a huge chunk of the investment.

There has been a call for transparency about salaries, would you share this kind of information?

It is complicated. Most teams don’t do it for a good reason: giving your budget numbers would mean to give away crucial informations to your competitors, which isn’t something businesses should do. Of course some teams do, but I believe this is mostly for marketing purposes.

I believe we reached a turning point in professional League of Legends. It is probably the last year an independent team can enter the LCS, as the price tag for the spots is growing immensely. In the future, only big organizations with a well-funded infrastructure or with investors behind them will be able to claim a spot. We’ll be left with long-established teams that managed to stay at the top, thanks to a dedicated fanbase and sponsoring, and big teams with cash-rich investors like Rick Fox and Marc Cuban being the remaining ones.

It is known that some LCS teams are trying to sell their spot. But an organization willing to buy will need to invest heavily.

While we are touching the topic right now: how important are investors?

[perfectpullquote align=”right” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]Sponsors are a must.[/perfectpullquote]

To survive, you need supportive partners. Sponsors are a must. The majority of the money at Vitality comes from sponsoring. Another important source of revenue can be merchandising, but we still have to work on that. In Europe, only Fnatic really manages to earn big money from merchandising. Its importance is going to increase in the future though. Just like in any sport, merchandising, ticketing and TV rights will be a big part of the esports’ economy. For now, it is mostly sponsors, but we’ll get there.

Relying so heavily on sponsors makes teams very vulnerable to economic crises. Are esports teams prepared enough?

It is even more true since contracts in esports are very short term. There is a much higher volatility than in most other markets. From one day to another, a very big team can crash down. It is particularly worrying with salaries growing exponentially. If there is a crisis tomorrow and sponsors withdraw, many teams will be in trouble. So we are all looking for ways to depend less on sponsors.

Changing gears: why is the importance of media requests so much higher in League of Legends?

The difference is obvious. We were almost never solicited by media before. Now we receive requests constantly. We’ve started having more mainstream media interest as well. To give you an example, Canal+ (one of the main French TV channels) is going to follow us in Berlin next week. The LCS grew our visibility a thousand times. And that’s exactly what we came for.

I really like that mainstream media is taking interest. I want esports to get out in the open. When talking about esports, most people are still unsettled or haven’t heard about it at all.

We talked about the need for a pro-gamer status in France last week. What status are you using for your players? And what do you expect from the government?

All our players were self-employed, but we are changing that. Our goal is to have all players under salaried contracts. It isn’t always possible yet, because there is no suitable legal status. The “self-employed” status isn’t ideal, but there is no better juridical solution most of the time.

[perfectpullquote align=”right” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]Our goal is to have all players under salaried contracts.[/perfectpullquote]

I’m really curious to see what the government will do. I’m very attentive on the subject because I’ve already seen how a government can destroy an ecosystem when they ruled poker. At that time, the ruling authorities didn’t care for poker at all and killed it. This time, the senators seem to really look into things with interest. They interviewed everyone and show a desire to do well. But as to what will come out, I have no idea.

Is there anything you would like to add?

I would like to thank our partners Red Bull and SteelSeries! It may look like a phrase, but without them we couldn’t have done it.