“The Esports Community Ultimately Decides And Validates Who Garners Attention And Loyalty”

Carlos Alimurung is the CEO of ONE Esports, the esports arm of ONE Championship. He is responsible for the overall vision and execution of ONE Esports’ strategy and has P&L ownership of the business. iSPORTCONNECT spoke with him to know more about the COVID-19 impact, rise of esports and recent partnerships.

What has been the impact of Covid-19 on ONE Esports? How is ONE Esports tackling Covid-19 challenges?

It has certainly been a tumultuous time for the world. On the one hand, the global pandemic has disrupted so many lives, governments, and businesses – it has been disheartening to see. On the other hand, the situation has shone a light on esports, especially as traditional sports stopped and only recently reopened in a limited fashion.

Esports was born from grassroots efforts, which started online. Consequently, when traditional sports stopped, esports kept going. For ONE Esports, while we plan our 2021 schedule of live audience events, we continue with our digital and streaming activities and events, which have been incredibly successful.

Esports was born from the grassroots. Consequently, the community ultimately decides and validates who garners attention and loyalty.

For example, the monthly traffic to Oneesports.gg jumped by more than 30% in August and continues to grow. Oneesports.gg is now a top five global esports media property. In June, with HP, Intel, TUMI, and Harvey Norman, we held the ONE Esports Dota 2 SEA League, which featured the region’s best Dota 2 teams, with the 6-week competition generating over 36 million views. Recently, with HP and Intel, we hosted a Dota 2 masterclass with pro players, Muhammad “inYourdreaM” Rizky and Tri “Jhocam” Kuncoro, both from T1, which was streamed exclusively on Vidio.com and generated an average viewer watch time of over 40 minutes.

What is ONE Esports’ marketing and branding strategy?

As I mentioned, esports was born from the grassroots. Consequently, the community ultimately decides and validates who garners attention and loyalty. That is why everything we do is focused on executing our mission, which is to share and celebrate the stories of esports heroes who ignite the world with strength, hope, dreams, and inspiration. Great examples of our mission in action are our documentaries following the journeys of some of the best esports teams in the world, including Team Secret, EVOS, RRQ, and Geek Fam.

The esports community wants to see esports athletes elevated on the same pedestal as their counterparts in traditional sports. The fact that the ONE Esports community is the most engaged and passionate audience within esports is evidence of our success. Our community spends more money on gaming, consumes more content, and games more intensely than average gaming fans.

The average ONE Esports fan consumes 7.1 hours of gaming and esports video or streaming content per month.

For example, our analysis indicates that a ONE Esports fan spends US$33 per month on gaming, which is significantly higher than the US$18 per month that an average gaming fan spends. Furthermore, the average ONE Esports fan consumes 7.1 hours of gaming and esports video or streaming content per month versus the 3.8 hours of content consumed per month by the average gaming fan.

Tell us about your latest partnerships. What is the kind of brands you look to associate with?

We are privileged to partner with some of the world’s best brands including DBS, HP, Intel, JBL, Lazada, Logitech, Red Bull, Toyota, TUMI, and Unilever, to name just a few. All our brand partnerships are 360-degree, as ONE Esports provides a complete ecosystem.

Oneesports.gg provides an always-on content platform with a monthly output of more than 1,000 content pieces across four localizations to excite, educate, and entertain the esports community. ONE Esports Events creates live magical moments that are priceless. ONE Esports Studio enables our community to relive those magical moments.

All our brand partners participate seamlessly across our ecosystem, which enables them to connect and engage with the esports community holistically.

All our brand partners participate seamlessly across our ecosystem, which enables them to connect and engage with the esports community holistically and generate consistent and high returns on their investments.

What are the future plans for ONE Esports?

Our strategy will continue to deliver on our mission to share and celebrate the stories of esports heroes who ignite the world with strength, hope, dreams, and inspiration. Moving forward, you should expect our coverage on Oneesports.gg to include more long-form storytelling of esports athletes as we dive deeper into what drives them to be the best, and our events, whether with in-person audiences or streamed, to be even more innovative, engaging, and interactive.