Can This Man Make His Video Gaming Team a $1 Billion Business?
ByJack Etienne is trying to persuade advertisers that a bunch of guys maneuvering online archers, monsters and mages is a lucrative investment.
Jack Etienne had reinvented himself. He’d gone from an eager photocopier salesman with an obsessive evening-and-weekends video game habit to the chief executive officer at a professional video-game-playing company that generates millions of dollars a year in sponsorships. In 2017, he committed more than $30 million in investment funds buying a spot in two of the world’s top esports leagues, where pro video gamers compete in front of huge audiences. Now those Silicon Valley investors expect him to turn his team, Cloud9, into a global entertainment business. So, this April, searching for clues as to how he might do that, Etienne flew to New Orleans to experience WrestleMania 34…
Can This Man Make His Video Gaming Team a $1 Billion Business?
