“Geeks become the new jocks as British universities now have more gaming teams than football”. According to a recent article on The Telegraph:
“E-sports have now overtaken football as the sport with the highest number of teams at British universities. There are 685 e-sports teams spread across 73 universities in the UK, compared to 662 football teams”
When it comes to the rise of E-sports, the first trend is that gaming is no longer just a hobby. It is now a legitimate sport in which training is needed so people can take their game to the next level. For example, University students can earn scholarships to play esports at their university and compete. Teams and facilities are being created around the world and they are drawing tens of thousands of fans that follow them intensely.
According to this Washington Post article from August 2018:
Tournament prize pools now rival those for some of the biggest events in traditional sports, and global audiences for some big gaming events have surpassed 100 million viewers, driven largely by esports’ exploding popularity in Asia.
The rise in professional esports has expanded internationally through Overwatch, Fortnite, League of Legends and other tournaments which are very popular internationally. 
The second trend where E-Sports is gaining popularity is engaging with young players. Esports has become very popular with global youth as they spend significant time after school mastering games such as Fortnite, Overwatch and more. Youth spend hours playing with their friends, trying to improve and practicing. Just like regular sports they are able to choose their favourite sports and practice it as much as they can. But when it comes to traditional sports like Football or Basketball, teens would go to a football club/class. Is there an equivalent for E-Sports? Enter Novos.gg.
We sat with Or Briga and Shai Arnon, co-founders of Novos, for a chat on the world of E-Sports, best practices in coaching and what it takes to find product market fit in this market.
Remagine Ventures: In one of its last earning reports, Netflix mentioned that their competitor is Fortnite, not Disney or HBO. How do you see gaming fitting in the wider entertainment industry?
Novos: The way we see it is that Netflix is competing over people’s attention, specifically on what people choose to do in their leisure time. Older people traditionally spend their free time in front of their TV in their living room, as this is what they have done for a very long time. But the younger generation is much more excited about interactive entertainment rather than a passive one, preferably, with a social aspect built in. Fortnite does exactly that. Netflix are right. Both them and Fortnite are players in the economy of attention, and people are giving a lot of attention to Fortnite. In addition, another very important element is the Fortnite eco-system – Fortnite is more than just a game. Kids today consume more content around the game then when they play the game. Fortnite has an amazing background story which they update every season. The map is constantly changing, new characters are added to the game (such as the Marvel cross over), there is an endless amount of theories about the game and Epic has next steps to improve it even more. The combination of all of the above creates an amazing attention machine that is hard to compete with.
Remagine Ventures: What makes Novos stand out in the world of eSports?
Novos: We treat gamers the way athletes should be treated. Each gamer at NOVOS gets a personalized training plan that is based on their gaming skills, knowledge and performance in the game. The platform tracks their performance constantly and adapts their training plan accordingly. Furthermore – training is better together – We put a emphasized on training
together in a group and in duals.
Remagine Verntures: You’re now at the start of your journey as a company, in beta. Where do you see Novos in five years?
Novos: In 5 years is Novos will be the primary gaming training platform. Every gamer who wants to improve is getting coached in the platform, every team that want to scout talent, go hunt at NOVOS. NOVOS is the leading source of gaming training knowledge for every fan, coach and gamer.
Remagine Ventures: Players like Ninja make $500K a month from streaming on Twitch. How do you think cloud gaming and ‘one click to stream’ platform will affect this space?
Novos: One click to stream will make streaming much more accessible, but the most exciting opportunity that cloud gaming brings is the ecosystem of 3rd party apps that will be integrated into the games. Google showcased in its cloud gaming service launch event a scenario in which you can share your current situation with a friend or a third party (such as NOVOS). In addition and as mentioned above, entertainment is changing. At NOVOS we deal with younger audiences (12-18 years old). They expect to have a close and almost personal connection with their “stars” and we think that streaming is the best way to create that connection. Gamers also have the opportunity to choose who will become more popular (by subscribing to his channel and bring friends on board) and play together with them. We are positive that streams will become more advanced as we see more and more brands starting to supports streamers.
Remagine Ventures: What are the trends that you’re seeing in eSports as a whole and in Israel specifically?
Novos: Esports is evolving – up to three years ago it was safe to say the Esports was like the wild west, no contracts, no rules and most of the parties in this industry were standing alone. We think that as esports heads towards the mainstream we will see more regulation, more brands participating and smarter contracts to avoid ‘Tfue’ type situations in the future – see here . In addition, mobile gaming is gaining traction. In the past, mobile was at the top of casual gaming and now we see more and more games aiming to become the next esports game. Games such as Brawl stars, mobile legends clash of clans and the new version of League of Legends for mobile (here) are all trying.
For Disclosure
We (Remagine Ventures) led the pre-seed round of Novos, after my partner, Kevin Baxpehler, mentored the team for a number of months at the Zell Entrepreneurship program.
I'm a former general partner at google ventures, head of Google for Entrepreneurs in Europe and founding head of Campus London, Google's first physical hub for startups.
I'm also the founder of Techbikers, a non-profit bringing together the startup ecosystem on cycling challenges in support of Room to Read. Since inception in 2012 we've built 11 schools and 50 libraries in the developing world.
