The future 24/7 hub of global eSports news and entertainment, generating revenue through advertising.
Business overview
| Location | Leeds, United Kingdom |
|---|---|
| Social media | |
| Website | www.dexerto.com |
| Sectors | Games Digital Mixed B2B/B2C |
| Company number | 08611030 |
| Incorporation date | 19 Mar 2015 |
Idea
Introduction
Dexerto is an international supplier of eSports news & broadcasting. Started in March 2015 – rebranding from a hobbyist website into a fully fledged media business – we already have a fast-growing audience of 500,000 fans on social media, YouTube and Twitch TV & 400,000 unique visitors per month on Dexerto.com. Content is available in English, French, German, Spanish, Italian.
An eSport is a multiplayer video game practiced by a community of gamers as a competitive & skilled discipline. An exploding sector of the videogames industry, it features a sports-style ecosystem of pro gamers competing for millions in cash prizes, watched live by millions of fans on online broadcasting platforms e.g. YouTube.
Deloitte report “eSports is poised to continue its rapid growth and break into the mainstream of the sports industry in 2016.” Super Data forecast 238M fans by 2017. The 1.2B consumers in the $100B videogames industry are potential eSports fans in the making.
Intended impact
Dexerto’s vision is to become the first one-stop 24/7 online news & media hub that is dedicated to every major eSport & eSports culture in every major language.
We feel that we’re already a key player in one of the world’s most popular eSports, with a strong and growing presence in the North American and European major gaming markets. Be it live broadcasting, live reporting from events, news in more languages and on more eSports titles, we feel that demand has never been higher from a booming audience whose insatiable appetite for eSports has established Dexerto as a leading choice for daily content.
By expanding our operations in the following ways, Dexerto will continue to drive the narrative and keep fans connected with their heroes and icons:
24/7 News: Our international team of journalists will constantly have their fingers on the pulse to provide fans with news around the clock.
Every Major Language: With experience in producing content in several languages, we know the value of cultural nuance - such as tone, humour and imagery - and employ native journalists who best understand their target audience. This approach will be emulated for all additional languages we plan to offer content in, including Russian, Korean and Mandarin.
Every Major eSport: we aim for all news and entertainment from every eSports title will be published on Dexerto.com. On-going development of digital infrastructure will also allow us to deliver content in a variety of social media formats, immersing fans to a greater degree than ever before.
Global Live Reporting: We plan to expand our on-the-ground activity to a greater extent in North America and Europe and beyond into Asia, South America and Australia.
Substantial accomplishments to date
Dexerto has worked with global brands, delivering advertising campaigns & producing content for the likes of Coca Cola, Papa John’s, Red Bull and Ladbrokes.
Generated over 400,000 unique visitors to Dexerto.com and 1.3M page views in August.
Already provided live broadcasts – in several languages – for some of the world’s premier eSports competitions e.g. ESPN’s X Games & Call of Duty World League.
Management team has established advertising relationships with global brands from both within and outside of the eSports market, including sports, energy drinks, tech and betting.
Hector Rodriguez, owner of eSports team OpTic Gaming, joined Dexerto as a Shareholder in February 2016. He is highly regarded for establishing the OpTic Gaming brand into a YouTube & eSports powerhouse, with over 14 million fans, a book release and high profile partnerships with international brands.
Monetisation strategy
Dexerto builds compelling news, videos, live broadcasts and other services that attract audiences whose attention can then be sold to advertisers. We have a growing audience segmented by language, country, eSports, platform etc., allowing us to deliver international and localised campaigns to the most engaged eyeballs in the market. We believe we have scalable growth and a revenue model that allows us to emulate our commercial activity in every country with a video games market.
Our range of commercial opportunities can include ad display on Dexerto.com, advertising on live broadcasts, social media campaigns, content partnerships, creation and licensing of content for third-party use, co-creation of content with brands and provision of media talent.
We believe Dexerto's international reach and social media presence also makes us attractive as a strategic partner for brands looking to enter eSports or to establish a presence in new eSports territories. Campaigns pushed through a wide range of digital platforms - connecting fans with brands through different events and experiences - a strong relationship between Dexerto and consumers, and management with a strong track record allows us to offer services that guide and position brands as an authentic part of the eSports world, as well as complimenting rather than compromising their long established values and interests.
The management team has secured advertising relationships with or writing content for a number of high profile international brands, both from within and outside of the gaming industry, including:
- Papa John’s Pizza
- Red Bull
- JD Sports
- Ladbrokes
- CocaCola
- SCUF Gaming
- Alienware
Use of proceeds
To reach a global audience of currently 188M eSports fans, we’re looking to raise £200,000 to expand into other popular eSports games, languages, live broadcasting projects and to provide a hub of 24/7 eSports news.
This will be achieved by recruiting content producers, improving access to this content through application development, recruiting journalists and specialised staff and strengthening our commercial team, with a view to developing into far-east markets in the near future.
Management has identified the following key areas for investment:
• Content producers
• Smartphone application
• Commercial staff
• Increased social media activity
• On-going website development
• Evaluation of gambling and fantasy team platforms
Market
Target market
Dexerto’s primary target audience is 18 to 34 male eSports enthusiasts – constituting around 57% of the market in terms of viewership in the US – and potential eSports fans from the wider videogames community. We believe that female users are set to be a high growth market in the near future as more female players compete and rise to prominence, developing into role models and icons for other aspirational female gamers.
Like we see in mainstream sport, the eSports audience is likely to pay a premium to buy higher-grade equipment that can boost their performance or which allows them to feel like their favourite sports stars. The same appeal exists for other products, such as food and beverage, that are promoted by popular eSports content producers.
This highly targeted and engaged demographic is an advertising goldmine. In our experience fans mostly watch competitions via online streaming platforms such as Twitch.TV or YouTube Gaming, but eSports is also unique in that viewership is not just limited to the tournaments - fans can also watch their favourite players and teams practice live via the Internet on a daily basis. They can do so at no cost, which combined with the Internet’s borderless nature and its raft of social networking platforms, makes eSports highly accessible and one of the most globally and culturally integrated spectator sports in the world.
Given that practice and most competitions primarily take place online, the accessibility of eSports gives it the long-term potential of attracting one of the highest levels of participation and viewership in sport.
Characteristics of target market
eSports is expected to continue its explosive growth over the next four years, rising to a worldwide figure of 238 Million viewers per annum as it increasingly appeals to wider audiences through investment in mainstream media platforms such as mobile games and television.
The market is currently valued at $747.5M according to Super Data (2015 report). The primary source of revenue is advertising, with brands contributing $579M in advertising revenue, and eSports betting and fantasy sites adding a further $56M.
By 2017 eSports will be a $2B sector of the $100B+ video-games industry, with betting and fantasy sites expected to contribute as much as $2B by 2020. In 2014 the estimated number of gamers worldwide was 1.775B, demonstrating the huge potential growth for new eSports fans.
Marketing strategy
We have found that eSports enthusiasts enjoy interacting with content producers and to converse with other fans. Twitter, Facebook, TwitchTV & YouTube are four prominent mediums through which people can join debates on the latest news, voice opinions and speak directly to players and eSports personalities. Dexerto aims to be constantly involved with these discussions in order to exchange views with our audience on news, opinion pieces and competitions. We value their opinions not just for feedback but because we’re also passionate eSports fans ourselves who want to contribute to the conversation.
We consider a highly active social media strategy as a key element of good customer service that adds value by creating more discussion about our content throughout a potential network of hundreds of millions. It allows us to make content viral by leveraging our thriving social media, YouTube and Twitch TV audience of 500,000 fans, providing a powerful and cost-effective method in boosting traffic organically.
Reciprocal promotion of content, produced by professional players and personalities, continues to be an effective and efficient way of spreading our content and increasing viewership. Publishing professional players’ videos on Dexerto.com, for example, allows them to benefit from our traffic, while their promotion of the article on social media brings their fans to our website. The benefits of influencer marketing are therefore gained without the costs.
Likewise, with commercial partners, campaigns often involve reciprocal promotion of websites, social media channels and content in order to maximise on each others’ audiences.
We will also utilise Facebook marketing and begin activity on other social applications, in order to circulate traffic around additional digital platforms and to increase advertising opportunities.
Competition strategy
Since launching the business in March 2015, we feel that Dexerto has already become firmly established in the international market for Call of Duty eSports news and entertainment.
As we expand into more eSports titles, our content delivery, in several languages, will continue to provide a competitive edge in terms of content accessibility, the ability to hire the best, native language journalists, and our on-the-ground presence at the premier live competitions on an international scale.
In just a short space of time, we believe that we have proven to be able to thrive in a market with other specialist and mainstream media producing eSports content, despite currently operating with only a small team of content producers. By emulating our model across more languages and games, with more staff, we believe that our audience can grow at an even faster rate.
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