Before NRG takes the server against Weibo Gaming, they’ve already won. As a North American team at Worlds, they were effectively playing with house money. As the last team from the West in the quarterfinals, they’ve reached heights few from their region have before.
As one of the newest ownership groups in the LCS, NRG chief executive Andy Miller is thrilled with the performance, telling Dot Esports as much today.
It hasn’t all been an easy road though, especially not earlier this year. NRG acquired the Counter Logic Gaming slot in the LCS in April 2023 and weren’t exactly well received. “There was a whole group of people who hated us,” Miller told Dot. “And it’s like, ‘OK, they’re angry. I don’t blame them, they’re fans. I’d love to win them over. But if we lose them, then, you know, whatever, we’ll have NRG fans.’ We’re in this for the long run.”
At first, the long run looked as if it was going to be quite a bit longer. NRG dropped the first two matches of their first League of Legends split, but Miller says a players’ meeting got them back on track. The difference came with just “communication and trust,” and a robust analytics platform that has NRG’s League squad separated from the rest of the NRG pack in preparation.
“We have a lot of coaches, probably unsustainable, but they are well prepared,” Miller explained, noting they’re arguably the most prepared team he’s been around.
The week-long break between Worlds 2023 matches has Miller confident their preparation would win out against a Weibo Gaming team they’ve already lost to, 0–1, earlier in the League tournament. His comments on the coach’s staff’s unsustainability in terms of volume are prescient for the future of the LCS itself, though.
Fans have been reticent to ‘buy-in’ to the LCS teams at Worlds because of the region’s terrible history in international competition. That performance, among other reasons, has led to a steep decline in interest in the LCS. It’s clear something has to change. Something the ownership groups in the league are interested in is a pivot in structure.
Elaborating, Miller says the times of the LCS matches are “terrible” and that more international competitions are needed, like an EU vs. NA showmatch of sorts, or something with all of the teams in the Americas. Only having two international League events a year where their favorite teams get put six feet under quickly can lead fans of LCS teams to feel like they’re fans of “minor league teams,” Miller says.
These plans are unlikely to manifest until at least 2025, Miller says, citing the closeness of the 2024 season, but there’s interest among ownership groups in moving the structure.
Other changes, like a drop in salaries for players, are very real. However, NRG feels like it’s uniquely structured for the future because Miller claims they aren’t overpaying, and has a content network that dwarfs other teams in the same category. When Miller was negotiating a sponsorship with Kia for the League team, he paraphrased something they said to him very plainly: “I don’t want to be on a mural no one sees.”
A source close to NRG confirmed the organization is set up well. A screenshot of an NRG pitchdeck to sponsors shows a 10 percent increase in 2023’s Q1 to Q3 views across YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok as opposed to the same period in 2022. Several other esports teams also represented on the slide have seen drops of anywhere from 24 percent to over 50 percent, with the worst being FaZe Clan with a 57 percent tumble.
“I think we just hit 20 [sponsors] this year, which is wild,” Miller said. Additionally, NRG brought in wildly popular Minecraft creator Sapnap as a co-owner and content creator in October 2022, which surely bolsters their numbers.
As the esports industry continues to go through heavy realignment, NRG believes it’s set up for the long run in its competitive operations and the content to pay for the competitors.
“It was a bubble and salaries were too high for players. And things are starting to come back into things that align with revenues,” Miller said.
