100 Thieves is an e-sports organization and a game-related apparel company. How did this place become a world-class entertainment company in the field of e-sports?
Esports is a fast growing field, but it’s also an uncertain business. E-sports, which have existed for the past several decades, are becoming so popular that a global scale professional league has appeared in recent years. However, it is not yet known whether the pro leagues will be sustainable for a long time. One of the most successful companies in this ever-changing e-sports environment is 100 Seeves.
100 Sieves is not only an e-sports organization, but also a competitive company in game-related clothing. Avid fans buy items such as sweatshirts, T-shirts, and hoodies and become so popular that they can generate more than $500,000 in sales within five minutes, which reminds me of other popular street brands.
Ran it up today with the squad. #SuperstarKO in #Madden20 #EAambassador pic.twitter.com/2TjLPpp31p
— 100T Nadeshot (@Nadeshot) September 5, 2019
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
100 Seeves was founded in 2017 by former pro gamer Matthew Hague, known as Nadeshot. After starting his professional gamer career, he became a celebrity on YouTube. Based on his experience, he started 100 Seeves as an entertainment company that combines e-sports, YouTube streaming, and other fields such as clothing.
John Robinson, who works for major game retailers EA and Nexon, runs his own game studio and then is the CEO of 100 Seeves. Say. Most esports organizations, like regular professional sports teams, sign as many players and invest to win competitions and attract sponsors. But The Hague redefines the common sense of these esports organizations. The new esports organization Hague conceived is not only to win competitions, but to become an organization that has a huge fanbase, which is visited by many people on the content and social media channels it creates. It’s simple to say, but Robinson explains that Hague had the confidence to actually do it.
It was in the second half of 2017 that the 100 Seeves first made a big hit. After participating in the League of Legends Pro League, 100 Seaves has expanded the company’s three pillars of games, content, and clothing in their own way by having a popular e-sports team such as Fortnite and Call of Duty.
In June, former Dota 2 pro gamer Jacob Toft-Andersen took office as VP of 100 Sieves esports. In July, Doug Barber moves from street brand Reigning Champ to VP of clothing. Also, in October of last year, popular rapper Drake became the co-owner of the 100 Seeves.
100 Thieves Raises Series A, Drake and Scooter Braun Join As Co-Owners. https://t.co/PeXbqdhefs pic.twitter.com/tzy9A1zNLt
— 100 Thieves (@100Thieves) October 23, 2018
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
From the beginning, it is not known whether 100 Seeves had a vision of expanding its business in three axes: games, content, and clothing. But it didn’t necessarily provide anything outstanding from the start. Initial apparel products were a bit better than other companies, and video content wasn’t new. After several months, he started thinking about what gamers really wanted to see and how to focus on esports.
Popularity in the game field is like live broadcast, but there are no live content such as Photon Knight and Minecraft on the YouTube channel of 100 Seeves. This is the result of the 100 Seeves looking for his direction. The 100 Sieves YouTube channel deals with content that focuses not on the game itself, but on the personality of the person playing or the person concerned, such as a talk show with a pro gamer or an interview video with a businessman active in the entertainment field. It is meant to expand content in a direction that values individuality. The goal is to create expansive content such as the narrator or pro gamer version of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
100 Sieves’ clothing has high attention and is sold out in minutes when released. One of the goals is to continue this phenomenon. Building a true lifestyle brand is one of the brand’s main goals. He wants to create a real apparel brand, not to make products to support the e-sports business. This is also a means of differentiating 100 Seeves from other esports organizations.
In addition to apparel, the main source of income for 100 Sieves is sponsor income. Since 100 Seaves owns an e-sports organization, their uniforms can carry a corporate logo when their team competes in competitions. Companies that want to put their logos pay 100 Seeves, which is a big source of income.
The e-sports market can be a bubbly market, so the existence of multiple sources of income is very important considering the continued growth in the future. The 100 Sieves have a professional team in several game competitions, but now they only have League of Legends and Fortnite teams, while others have stopped working for various reasons. It is said that this is because it did not match their brand.
The most shocking thing is that the 100 Seeves withdrew from Call of Duty. This is surprising considering that Hague was originally a call-of-duty pro gamer, and the 100 Seeves had a pro team that had ever held two major call-of-duty titles. The reason 100 Seeves withdrew from Call of Duty is that Activision, a call-of-duty distributor, started planning a new pro league and required too much money to participate in the league. Of course, they withdrew from Call of Duty, but the 100 Seeves are expected to participate in more titles in the future.
100 Seeves is making an effort to build a new headquarters in Los Angeles. Now that the offices are scattered in several places, each employee works in the office space. Construction of the new headquarters is expected to be completed by the end of this year. The new office will have a player exercise room or editing room, a distributor’s studio, a clothing team design studio, and even a retail space selling apparel products. Related information can be found here .