Ryan Fairchild- Esports Attorney for Brooks Pierce Law Firm

Ryan represents esports players, influencers, content creators, and other stakeholders in negotiating and drafting contracts, structuring licensing deals, developing brand protection strategies, addressing corporate matters, and more. Ryan is an industry leader in representing top Twitch streamers as well as competitive players across Valorant, CS:GO, League of Legends, Dota 2, Fortnite, the fighting game community, and others.

We deep dive into the economics of esports, player contracts, and what the future of gaming & esports looks like. I am so ready for you to hear this one!

Transcript

Kyle Warren: 0:01

Good morning. Good evening. Good afternoon. Good second breakfast, wherever you are. Welcome to the Boonafide Experience Podcast. I am your host, Kyle. But really people just call me Boona. This podcast focuses on the business side of esports video games, and technology as a whole. If you're new here, or returning and haven't done so already, please follow and subscribe on your audio platform of choice. We are quite literally on every audio platform known to humankind, so there is zero chance for you to not be following already. If you also want to watch me get a little bit more animated and awkwardly reposition myself in my chair when I ask guests questions, please subscribe to my YouTube channel below. With those post notifications on that way you're notified every time a new episode is dropped. If you're wanting even more access to the Boonafide Experience Podcast, please consider pledging to my Patreon page. We have multiple tiers of pledges giving you everything from exclusive discord roles, early access to episodes, and even being able to ask my guest questions at the end of the episode. I can't tell you how much it means that you're here with me today. So let's go ahead and get started with the show. Good afternoon, Ryan. How are you today?

Ryan Fairchild: 1:25

Doing well, thanks for having me on.

Kyle Warren: 1:27

Yeah, absolutely. I'm glad we were able to connect and do this. And even though we're in kind of like the middle tail I wouldn't say a middle but tail end of of a pandemic, it's kind of cool that we get to do this, you know, cross state, you know, across state lines not having to be anywhere else at one time. So, you know, I'm a huge nerd for technology I'm fan. I'm absolutely really thrilled that this product came to fruition when it did and happy we're able to do this man.

Ryan Fairchild: 1:53

Yeah, well, I'm glad you can say at the tail end of the pandemic, at least for us here in the States, right. There's still a lot of a lot of work to be done in other places, a lot of things going on, but it is nice to be getting back to some semblance of reality here.

Kyle Warren: 2:05

You're right, you know, and some speaking on that topic briefly. I had a, I had a friend who has a couple businesses in Korea. And he remember when I was thinking about upgrading some of my computer parts and like some of my setup, he was like, because January and February was last year was kind of like, Well, we know what's going on overseas. So if you're like in the market for anything, like anything remotely related to technology, whether it's new graphics cards, or new, like parts, like do it now, because you'll be fine till August, September. But once that hits, like you're just going to be completely like shafted. So it's, it's kind of hard to like not have tunnel vision. But it's good that we're making some bit of progress.

Ryan Fairchild: 2:47

Yeah, for sure.

Kyle Warren: 2:49

Yeah, well, um, this is honestly the first I've worked with a few attorneys at my place of office. But I like I'm one thing about esports that I've always been fascinated about is the legal end or like is the legal side of it, because esports to me is like the Wild Wild West. And so it's fascinating to me to like, learn about what the legal end even looks like, you know? Because I know, the law sometimes has trouble catching up. And eSports is a very, like fast moving industry. And

Ryan Fairchild: 3:15

Oh yeah,

Kyle Warren: 3:16

You know, so thank you for being on and so for those who don't know, man, tell us tell everyone a little bit about who you are. What do you do?

Ryan Fairchild: 3:23

Yeah, so my name is Ryan Fairchild, and I am an attorney with the Brooks Pierce law firm based out of North Carolina. I started working in esports, specifically with players when I first started out only back in 2017, coming up on four years now. So nearly four years that I've been doing this. And from there, it grew into working with content creators, traditional entertainment work with, you know, other companies that support in the space production companies, management companies, things like that. So I that's now the majority of my practice. I also do some litigation, still some traditional, you know, business litigation. Brooks Pierce's sort of a full service firm with about 100 attorneys, all based here in North Carolina. So that's, that's the short of it. I mean, they're, they're, you know, that's the TLDR version. That's definitely a longer story to that, but that's the short of it.

Kyle Warren: 4:22

Cool, man. Yeah, we'll probably poke around a few parts of it in the audience can can piece it together. You know, so, again, you know, like I was mentioning esports is brand new. And so when you went to like, study law, like was, was esports like ever on your radar to want to practice like, how did you kind of like, get to where you are like, I guess, you know, whatever story that is, you know?

Ryan Fairchild: 4:44

Yeah, yeah. So let's let's step back a little bit because, you know, little Ryan back when he was in high school, I worked at a mini golf and arcade place and you know, I played in $5 buy in tournament, so if you if you talk about competitive gaming. It's existed for a long time. In fact, I think Will Pardon said, you know, there was like, space wars, there was a game way back in like the 70s where they had a tournament. So, you know, you depends on how you sort of define esports. But the, the modern era Yeah, definitely. More recent, particularly, I feel like there was sort of a new stage with franchising in League of Legends and an Overwatch League. That was sort of a new phase of it. And I was actually just starting just as that was happening. But no, when I was in law school, I was anticipating I went to law school because I wanted to do criminal justice reform, that's still something that's a big interest of mine. And while I was at law school, I had a professor who was a national litigator for the ACLU said, she said, "I think you should try working in a mid sized law firm." And I had had zero interest in working for a law firm, because my picture was always the big New York firm, San Francisco, Los Angeles, that sort of thing. I was like, I don't want the soul crushing job, right. Like, I want to actually enjoy my free time have free time. So you know, when she said that, it held a lot of weight because she was somebody doing who had been doing up until she became a professor work that would have been right up my alley. And so she connected me to a law firm that I was like, Oh, this is actually interesting work. And, you know, the hours are stringent, but it's doable. So, you know, I went from there, to gearing towards litigation, and not taking anything, frankly, that really served me well for moving into esports. Like, I did some cyberspace law, which sort of out Yeah, touched a little bit on some of the issues. But my only connection to eSports at the time was I was playing a ton of Dota watching a bunch of like professional Starcraft matches, like I would have pro Starcraft and pro Dota on in the background of whenever I was studying. And so what happened, the reason I got into it is I did a clerkship after for a federal judge. So I came down here to Wilmington, North Carolina and did a clerkship for a judge. And when the clerkship ended, my.. well I actually had a chance to end early my wife said, "Let's take the boys," we had our two boys at the time. And let's travel through South America and my works remote, we can do slow travel. And so while we were doing that, you know, kind of living on the cheap and spending more time and you know, we weren't doing the big touristy thing, we were doing slow travel. And while I was doing that, I read a lot about sort of the business of esports and was looking at kind of the the interplay of the legal side and the economic side and was writing some thinking about it. And so when I interviewed with Brooks Pierce, when we got back to the United States, I interviewed with Brooks Pierce, and everybody asked me, well, if you could do anything, what would you do? I apologize if you're looking at my kids. Yeah. But, you know, that's our day and age, I guess, with the pandemic,

Kyle Warren: 8:10

I have a dog that barks at every truck that goes by so we may get it, she may introduce herself as well.

Ryan Fairchild: 8:17

I hope so that will make me feel better about the stuff going on the background. So after that, yeah, when I got to the law firm and interviewed everybody else, if you could do anything, what would she do? I said, esports. And everybody's like, "what's esports?" And I would explain sort of some of the demographics, what was going on and everything. And people would say I, you know, "I still have no idea what you're talking about. But you know, some of that sounds really interesting. And if you can go get it, then you should pursue it." And so I took them at their word. And when my daughter was born, I had some time off. And so I called up one of the contacts who I'd been writing for, he was an editor at a magazine called Kill Screen that was getting ready to publish a piece of mine until they sort of let go a lot of the longer form stuff. But I called Will Pardon that. That was my buddy and said, "Will, can you connect me to anybody? Like, can you connect me to a player just to figure out how to do this stuff for free?" And so all of that, coming back to your question, like, I did not do anything to prepare, like, I didn't know what esports legal practice looked like at the time. So I had to learn all of the intellectual property work, I had to learn, you know, more contracts, you look at contracts as a litigator, but it's always sort of like the post mortem, right? Like, you're looking at it after the fact and saying,"Okay, what went wrong here? You know, what are the arguments we can make things like that?" So, you know, I had to learn that the labor and employment stuff, talent agency act, things that come into play all the time, licensing, really licensing of intellectual property rights being one of the biggest things, so I just wasn't equipped for it until I started doing it

Kyle Warren: 9:58

Until you kind of get That's that's a that's a cool I feel like everyone that I've that I've had a conversation with on this podcast that is involved in the scene. It's never It was never like a "I wanted to do this. And so this is what I did." It was like I you like, you know, like you like Starcraft, you had Dota Pro League on the background, but you're you had your own like career path. And then like,

Ryan Fairchild: 10:17

Yeah!

Kyle Warren: 10:18

There was this weird, random, like opportunity that you stumbled upon? And you're just like, Well, why not? You know? And so that's been that. Yeah, that's been kind of the story of a lot of people that I have interviewed on here. And so one thing that I've had been curious about, like until today, you know, the economics of esports have been very, like, it's it's very, like hush hush on like, how well the industry is actually doing, you know, and, you know, economic like, how these companies are making money, what the contracts look like player rights, you know, when it comes to like, esports as a whole, you know, do you just kind of like as a as someone who's in the industry, do you think that it's in a good spot, like economically? Like, because even though there's all this money being thrown into, it's like, what do we have to show for it? And like, it's just not very clear.

Ryan Fairchild: 11:04

Yeah, no, I think that's a really interesting question. Yeah, there's, there's a lot of different places we could go with that. So you know, I don't see teams books. I don't know how they're doing. I know, anecdotally, you know, when I hear here, and there people mentioning things, but, you know, I know that there are some teams who are making money. You know, there was announcement today, I'm guessing that TSM you know, if they weren't in the black before, I'm guessing they're probably doing okay, now.

Kyle Warren: 11:35

Right.

Ryan Fairchild: 11:35

Um, so the the issue, though, is publishers control all of the intellectual property for the games. And so any monetization that's featuring the games is going to flow through the publisher who will control that revenue. And so teams really, in order to make money, they have to find other ways besides direct monetization of the game. So it's building a lifestyle brand, and selling merchandise and doing sponsorships. Yep, yeah, you got the 100 Thieves on, it's trying to find other ways. So there's some teams who are, you know, trying to build technology platforms and trying to find that angle, where I sort of think of it like skateboarding and surfing brands, like you've got O Riley and or sorry, not O'Neill, and you've got Billabong and Mossimo. And some of these, you know, older, we're talking about older brands, at this point Vans, who they started with a very specific niche product. And then they created a lifestyle brand, where it expanded out. And I actually think that's a really interesting sort of case study of businesses, as well as, start with a niche, build your audience there, and then find ways to organically sort of grow from there. So esports, for example, a lot of people compared to sports, I actually think the better. It's better just to think of sports and esports as separate verticals in the entertainment industry.

Kyle Warren: 13:09

Got it.

Ryan Fairchild: 13:10

Because at the end of the day, what you're really doing is trying to attract eyeballs, right? And so if you if you think about esports as a niche among entertainment, then it's like, Okay, then our natural extensions are out into the entertainment space, or out into the lifestyle brand space, like, think about what the natural extensions are. So going back to your question, though, I don't know that competitive esports is built in a way that it can make a lot of money, at least not as structured right now. And at least not with publishers, kind of exercising the degree of control they do, or in the case of Valve, the lack of control. So, you know, I kind of go back to my my rules of esports. The first rule of esports is that the community determines what an esport is. It's not the publisher, it is it's the community. And that's why Smash Brothers, as much as Nintendo would probably love for it not to be a competitive game and just a game you play for fun with your friends and your kids. Whatever, it's the community has blessed it and has lifted its status up to esport level. And you can build a game as a publisher and say, Hey, we're gonna make an esport. And we're gonna call it Overwatch and we're gonna pump a bunch of money into it. And if the if the community isn't there, it doesn't matter what the publisher does. So you know, hope hopefully, Overwatch succeeds in some way or another. But really what publishers should be doing is not trying to create an esport they should just try to create good games that a community is going to rally around, and then the community will determine if it's an esport.

Kyle Warren: 14:54

Seems like a lot of pressure, like on the publisher in reality,

Ryan Fairchild: 14:57

yeah, yeah. And also just a lot less sort of outsourcing a risk to everybody else I guess by like saying Okay, yeah, come buy franchises in our in our league, but we'll see what happens. So you know, I always say Starcraft one of the greatest esports ever and Blizzard What are they doing with it? Where is it? Yeah, like, yeah, you know why isn't around and maybe it's because you can't sell you know, eight figure franchise fees around Starcraft

Kyle Warren: 15:30

Unbelievable man. Yeah. Yeah. And so you know when it comes to you know, it's interesting, you talked about the verticals of like, you know, the sports and esports. And I like that you made that comparison because, I mean, you look at the way traditional sports makes money, it's, you know, it's ticket sales, its media right steals its merchandise, it's this and, and recently we've been seeing like, or there's been chatter around like media about like media rights deals, and like how that could potentially be, you know, esports's is like, kind of saving grace, if you or at least some people say that's the story. And some people, you know, don't really know. But..

Ryan Fairchild: 16:09

Yeah, I don't really know, either, like, a lot of the deals you see come in through Twitch and YouTube. But I think the problem is, if you're just looking for eyeballs, like, go grab Shroud and some other big streamers, and pay them X amount of dollars, which probably costs some fraction of what it does to operate an esports league, because you know, Shrouds' pulling in like an arenas worth of people every single day. Like,

Kyle Warren: 16:37

It's unbelievable

Ryan Fairchild: 16:38

You knows. So if you're trying to get people to watch games, a lot of people would say, just go through the influencers. So you know, and that's, I think, one of the reasons why Activision Blizzard wanting to do in person stuff was to get back to that sports model of, you know, let's sell pour rights, let's sell merchandise, let's have it be an experience a day, you know, go to an outing with the kids, that sort of thing as well. More of the spectacle, and the physical location spectacle. But I still think that we should try to be more innovative with how we go about things like there. I actually, I mean, personally, I think what would be really exciting is, if I'm still a blockchain, neophyte, but it seems like the key to sort of this industry, like esports came out of map editors, it came out of Blizzard, in particular, putting out in tools where the community could come in, and just make stuff. And out of that, you get Dota, all stars, and Dota, Defensive the Ancients and you get Tower Defense even. And you get all these other genres of games that emerge just from giving the community tools to build. And then you know, from Dota, comes League, even even, you know, Counter Strike and some of the things that have come out of there, there's a lot of community contribution there. So one of the things I've thought about is why not, like build some of this stuff onto the blockchain and just say, Okay, if you go make money with this, built into the blockchain is some amount of we get x percentage revenue back and then just go wild? Like, do whatever you want. And that way, like the

Kyle Warren: 18:18

Yeah. publisher, who's put these tools out there, make some amount of money into perpetuity, but then otherwise allows the community because again, it is the community who is building the esport, who is choosing what the esport is, he's going to be the fans who's going to be doing all those things, you know, like MLG was originally just, you know, let's, how do we put on tournaments with this? How do we do these different things Optic? And optic was just "Alright, let's make cool videos of us doing stuff in it." Yeah.

Ryan Fairchild: 18:51

Yeah. And so copyright law, you know, thanks to Disney is my gosh, any Remember, you know, life of the Creator plus seven years? I think it is. It might be more than that. I gotta look it up copyright. Life. How many years I always forget this. I should know this. But yeah, seven years. Okay, I was right. Alright, go me. See, what people don't know about lawyers is we don't actually know all the law. We just know how to look it up. And we sort of have it here. So like, like, hey, that seems weird. I'm gonna go look some stuff up. Actually, what lawyers do they look stuff up. So, you know, because of that, though, like publishers, before esports, their way of making money was "I put a game out here, and I capture all the revenue and I protect it from everybody. Don't go copy my game, don't go copy my game. Don't go copying my game. If you copy my game that I come at you with lawsuits and cease and desist and stuff like that." So esports comes along, and it's this different model with like, "we need to violate your copyright in order to have esports like, we need to just build stuff, right?" And they're like, "No, no, you can't do that. We don't allow anybody don't copy our game. Don't do anything with our game." And so there's the shifting a model. The, again, like you were mentioning, I think that, you know, technology is always ahead of the law.

Kyle Warren: 20:15

Yeah.

Ryan Fairchild: 20:15

And the law, if anything often slows technology down, for better and worse, it's for both, right? Like, there are instances where the law is put in place in order to fix the bad things that happened as a result of technology, or labor practices, or whatever it is. But we're very slow at updating them. And we're bad at responding to new technology. And so because of that, we, you know, sometimes can't have nice things.

Kyle Warren: 20:40

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I mean, even I was even having a discussion, the the medical industry almost kind of, for a different reason, kind of suffers the same, like lag in technology was that their their deal is privacy. You know, it's like, how do we keep customer data private, you know, and it's like, every time a new level, new era of technology comes out, it's like, well, how do we migrate that over? How do we, you know, like, do that with always keeping the patient in mind? And it was kind of a fascinating, you know, discussion, because I had no idea about the medical industry or anything about how our healthcare system works, cuz I think even the people who build it don't know how it works. You know, something that I did notice is like, you know, we had, like, there's, there's companies that like, seem to get it, or publishers that seem to just like, get it when it comes to esports. Like, you look at, you know, League of Legends, I mean, and recently Valorant I want to touch on that just a bit because, I don't know, I didn't know before last week, much about Valorant. Like, I it was a really hard game to play and it was very similar to Counter Strike. I knew it was very peaky game and

Ryan Fairchild: 21:43

Careful to tell that to as well, because you know, Counter Strike players are going to tell you Valorant not an easier game. Yeah, or sorry, it is an easy game relative to

Kyle Warren: 21:51

relative to that. But again, I you know, and I'll Counter Strike give a little I'll share a little bit of my history on it's like, I'm a I'm a Halo kid. And so I grew up playing you know, Halo, CE, Halo 2, Halo 3, that was like my generation of what, you know, that's where I started gaming. And, you know, we kind of struggle with the same divide within the Halo community where it's like, I'm like a what you consider Halo Boomer, who likes just traditional movement, left, right, jump, there's like, there's no manipulation of mechanics, there's no like, it's just shooting and moving and grenades and teamwork. That's it on a symmetrical map. But now you introduce a game like Halo five, where there's, you know, sliding and thrusting and clamber and advanced movement. And like the the community split. And one argues that, you know, with Halo 2, Halo CE- 3 and Reach arguably, you had, like, you had to think more about your movement before you made a play. Where isn't Halo 5, you could if you you know for lack of like, if you fucked up, like you could get yourself out of it. Or, you know, you could, like

Ryan Fairchild: 22:51

Yeah.

Kyle Warren: 22:51

you know, there's but at the same time, though, the skill ceiling when you add advanced mechanics

Ryan Fairchild: 22:56

goes way up.

Kyle Warren: 22:57

Yeah, it goes way up, and you have players like shotzi, and you have players like frosty and you have like these, these kids that just are brilliant and know how to manipulate the game.

Ryan Fairchild: 23:05

Yeah.

Kyle Warren: 23:06

But I go, that's kind of like, to me the way Valorant is with like, you know, that's just my perspective of it at least. But to my point though, as a viewer, or a very lightly skilled person, like that has no idea how the game truly works. Like, I actually sat down and watched the Masters the entire week, last week. And like, it was actually very entertaining for someone who knew, I didn't know everything about the game, but like, knew very, very little, and they somehow found a way to keep someone like me entertained for an entire week. And not only entertain but like I was hyped man. Like I was like, I was like, in it with the NA EU, like all around the globe. It was a cool experience, man. But I look at games like that. And then I look at Call of Duty where it's like, I grew up playing Call of Duty. And it's franchise and now they're, you know, they're eight figure, you know, you know, franchise dteals. Yeah, like, but it's not, unless it's my team that's playing. I don't really care about watching it. And there's, there's like this, this question that bears like, if we're trying to expand esports in this entertainment vertical, like how do we we have to expand outside of gamers. I mean, that's just my take. How do we do that?

Ryan Fairchild: 24:14

Yeah,

Kyle Warren: 24:14

you don't I mean that

Ryan Fairchild: 24:14

Well, you have that dynamic and other going back to sports. And I want to point something out by the way, you just mentioned you were totally enthralled even though you weren't watching it right. Like you're you're not an s deep family player, you had you had the storyline, the NA versus EU. Again, esports is entertainment. Right? It's storytelling like that. That's really what's going on there. So, you know, I tell people the same thing with sports, you have characters you've got, you know, Trey Young versus the next there was the next you know, great film good story finally gets back to the playoffs screw James Dolan. And then Trey young comes in as the villain. And yeah, puts on an amazing show bows when he knows he's about to send them home like, fantastic with that there's a story there right like it's still entertainment at the end of the day, which is why You know, the NBA never really cracks down that hard on refs because you know, people complain about them. That's something to look into.

Kyle Warren: 25:06

Yeah. That you touched a nerve on now. I mean, I'm a Houston Rockets fan and I went to game six of the play, I think it was in 17 or 18. And that was just an experience. I won't forget. I don't. It was when it was game seven that it was actually game seven rockets vs. Warriors, the Western Conference Finals. And it was my mom got like, I pressured my mom at the time to get tickets for us. And we were in the nosebleeds like in the way far up, terrible seats. But it's like when you're there talking about what we mentioned earlier, like the experience like there's nothing like being in a playoff game with a bunch of people that are just jazzed up and there's energy.

Ryan Fairchild: 25:41

Oh, yeah.

Kyle Warren: 25:41

goosebumps. And, but man, the first between the first half and the second half. It's like, it's like they completely swapped refs. Or it's like they completely forgot everything they knew about basketball because they were so blatant about it. It wasn't that they just missed a few here and there that like changed the course of game. It was like it looked like they were deliberately throwing it like I say that as a passionate fan. But anyway, that created a massive storyline, you know, and so I don't know that's a tough spot. But

Ryan Fairchild: 26:11

Well, there will never be I think anything is bad as the I grew up in the Bay Area, by the way, so I'm a Warriors fan.

Kyle Warren: 26:16

Yeah,

Ryan Fairchild: 26:16

um, but there will never be anything as bad as Kobe Bryant elbowing Mike Bibby in the nose and Mike Bibby having a foul called on him.

Kyle Warren: 26:27

Yeah,

Ryan Fairchild: 26:27

for that, like he's bleeding, like out of his nose. Bleeding has the foul called on them. And that that was I think, Donna, he was one of the reps who worked that series, where Sacramento should absolutely have won and it went to the Lakers. And you know that the NBA has no incentive to try to, like, do anything about that. Like, it's just a narrative for them. It's still narrative. So I never know if like the fix is actually in fully. And I've seen you know, I've seen it go for my team, I've seen it go against my team. But you know, it's still there's narrative there. But I wanted to go back to he were you raised another point about Valorant. And drawing in casual fans, that's what it was. So sports has this right? Sports has, like, I've watched rugby, and I get some rugby. And you know, with a little bit of explanation, I get a little deeper into it, and I enjoy it. But you know, I i understand basketball much, much better than I understand rugby, I understand hockey, you know, better than rugby as well. So, and there are some people who are way more into basketball than I am, you know, you've got Zach Lowe, like breaking down, like the little things that happened in a game in the same way that I've heard like Dota coaches break down, like I've had, I've got a client whose Dota coach one time was looking at replays and I said, "Okay, well, you know, why did this team win the game?" And he goes,"Well, it happened right here two minutes and 45 seconds when this guy makes this rotation at this time, they get this kill and the game's over." And like, they played for another 25 minutes. Like, how is it that he's like, "Oh, no, because this gives them a level advantage, which then allows him to rotate which then allows them to put pressure on this lane, which then does this stuff over here and then it's over." And at that point, you can like never really recover unless your team just you know, throws

Kyle Warren: 28:16

Sure.

Ryan Fairchild: 28:17

So that you know, there's always going to be a stratification of fandom. I think one of the key questions is how accessible is your game? And how do you draw the fan in? I actually am shocked that they have not figured out how to do this for Call of Duty because Call of Duty has such a big player base. It seems perfect for driving in the casual fan to watch this and i don't i don't know what it is. I haven't figured that out. If I do I can probably make this space a lot more money. But like with Overwatch, for example, you're starting with something that is incredibly hard to watch. And as much as the casters do to make it interesting. It is very difficult even for me as somebody who plays the game to get into, like Fortnite for example that I I can't stand building in Fortnite , like trying to watch like fortnight World Championships. I was like, this is actually probably a worse viewer experience than Overwatch. And that's saying something.

Kyle Warren: 29:09

Wow, I never heard that before.

Ryan Fairchild: 29:11

I think that Fortnite is. Fortnite is such a different construction of a game and we could go on to Fortnite like I sort of think Fortnite esports is dead frankly. Yeah. But it's it's not a good watching experience for me unless you get it down to those last two. But before that when you're jumping around, you don't know where you are on that platform. And the storms closing in around you and Oh gosh, it's a nightmare.

Kyle Warren: 29:41

Yeah, so I think Warzones done a decent job at at try like when they do these casting tournaments or like how they do how they do the tournament's and how they like have all the players with their live streams up the graphics that display them. Like people bring it back for context like you know, it's because not everyone's in the same game. I don't know. I don't have the single slightest clue how Fortnite competitive works like not Fortnite's a game that I, I've touched maybe a total of two hours, like total out of the entire time because I just I don't I just don't enjoy it so I'm not gonna go watch it. I just know that

Ryan Fairchild: 30:11

I'll also be frank, I don't enjoy it because I die. Like I just, you know, their 12 year olds pop in my head and I'm not doing anything right. So

Kyle Warren: 30:18

I mean, I, I come to feel like I respect Ninja for you know, like having that moment with Drake to like make esports cool and gaming popular and like I that's what I know about it. And I have respect for the game because I think that it allowed or it enabled, you know, a lot of growth, a lot of rapid growth, you know, from that moment. So

Ryan Fairchild: 30:37

Oh, yeah,

Kyle Warren: 30:38

I respect it. But I don't that. But yeah, you bring up an interesting point because like with Call with Call of Duty, it just, I like I said, like I said, I love the game. But to me the way like the roster like it, I don't know what the problem is here. But the way like the roster mania is right now that where they moved it from five players on the team to four players, like when someone when a player gets benched, it almost like 90% of the time means that they are going to they are basically kicked off the team and they got to go find another team. And that to me, you know, when you draw a parallel to sports, like when you get put on the bench, you just get put on the bench and then you could go back in at any point in time.

Ryan Fairchild: 31:16

Yeah,

Kyle Warren: 31:17

You don't I mean, so I that's that's the part with Call of Duty that I've really struggled with is that like, these players, how can they compete at their highest level, which takes a lot of skill, a lot of presence, a lot of awareness, when they're worried about am I going to get dropped tomorrow? Am I going to get benched? Am I as you look at TJ Haly and you look at the Huke thing with Dallas and La Thieves and like use like, how can you because TJ wasn't doing bad. You know, he was he was blamed. Like I mean,

Ryan Fairchild: 31:46

You had a shoot it was the team who just won the championship where they dropped some of their roster to

Kyle Warren: 31:51

Empire.

Ryan Fairchild: 31:52

I mean, yeah, Yeah, that's right. It dropped Huke. And that was like,

Kyle Warren: 31:55

Yeah.

Ryan Fairchild: 31:57

Yeah, I mean, part of that is there's a lot more process that goes into making a system stable. And there's also always money considerations and teams, in some ways. I think they've shot themselves in the foot by creating their own sort of arms race when they get into these things. I mean, frankly, and this is one of the hard things that I don't say a lot. We have, you know, sort of four traditional major sports leagues in the US, right, you got NFL NHL MLB and NBA, MLS is coming up, right? Yeah, maybe, you know, MLB is, you know, the S is gonna replace the B in those big four. But, you know, there are bowling leagues. And not as many people watch them. And they don't get paid as much. There's professional darts and billiards and ultimate frisbee there there is actually professional ultimate.

Kyle Warren: 32:57

I know that. Yeah.

Ryan Fairchild: 32:58

Yeah. And it does exist after college, apparently. So we have this stratification in traditional sports. And it exists in esports, as well. But there there are two difficult dynamics right now. One is that games tend to turn over quickly. And so trying to choose a winner of the video game, Battle Royale, if you will, is difficult. So like, you know, Battle Royale genre is very easy to replicate. And so you had H1Z1 one, followed by PUBG, followed by Fortnite, which each one sort of successively kicked off the previous one as the King of the Hill. PUBG still exists.

Kyle Warren: 33:42

Yeah. PUPG mobile is actually really hot right now.

Ryan Fairchild: 33:45

PUBG mobile is huge. Yeah. And then you have like Apex Legends comes in, which I think is the most fun to play. But you know, and there are others that come out there others that come out?

Kyle Warren: 33:57

Yeah.

Ryan Fairchild: 33:57

And so because of the nature of how easy it is to disrupt and how we haven't sort of calcified. It's hard to create stability. And I sort of worry about that long term as well, because it's like, how do you? You know, baseball has been around for over 100 years, well over 100 years at this point. Basketball, you know, NBA ABA merger was What 70s? I don't remember exactly. But, you know, 50 years since the merger sport existed before that. NFL has been around for ages, you've had a lot of the growing pains in sports, like happen, and you've sort of had the winners come out ahead. And so we're still in the phase of like, Is it going to be CSGO or Valorant? Or both? Is it going to be League of Legends or Dota? Or both? Somehow? I don't think it's going to be Overwatch League long term, but you know, who knows, maybe Blizzard finally figures it out. Maybe it will be Call of Duty. We haven't had that sort of stratification where We acknowledge that some things are just tier two, tier three esports, and teams get out of them. I think that teams are still gambling, a lot of what is going to win. And they're, they're using a lot of that venture funds also to try to survive longer term. So the The other issue is, I guess that's really just kind of the issue. And there's just a bunch of sub issues with that,

Kyle Warren: 35:25

right.

Ryan Fairchild: 35:26

So you also along with that, going back to the publisher point as well, like, what's the publisher going to do with it? Like Dota, I think could have put League of Legends in the dirt. If Valve had done things differently, like ages ago, and maybe there was a lawsuit that slowed them up and so League got a foothold and everything. But CSGO was the predominant as the FPS for a long time. And now Valorant looking pretty spicy. It really Is in having lots of people pushing over and you're seeing the viewership numbers. And you know, does Valve care enough about whether or not CSGO actually disappears to do anything about it? Because again, going back to publishers having different incentives, Valve's, incentives to get people on Steam, and to spend money on Steam. And so if Valve is like, well, shoot, we can't do with Dota or CSGO anymore. Better make a new game. Like maybe we'll actually go make Half Life 3 and I will buy it like he can't leave me hanging like that ending at the end of Half Life to like the most emotionally traumatized I have been at the end of the game. Like just a grown man who was just sitting there like like I stayed up I see it like it was super late at night I finished that game I was up for like an hour and a half after just like thinking about it. Like I can't fall asleep. Yeah, So you know if they eventually make Half Life 3 shoot Yeah, so that to me for 300 bucks. I'll pay that.

Kyle Warren: 36:49

Yeah, I mean, I I haven't I haven't been emotionally traumatized. Like, like that specific instance. I'll tell you the only the first time I cried in a video game was in Gears of War Two, you know, when when like, wait, what you know when I haven't played it? So I'll wait. So I won't I won't say all you got to know is that if you are interested, even if it's because Gears of War is one of those

Ryan Fairchild: 37:07

Should we have a little spoiler section. Like if you're watching the podcast, spoiler section, we'll let you know when it's over. Jump to the mark.

Kyle Warren: 37:14

Yeah, yeah, you haven't played well, I mean, but to be fair, though, the game is over 10 years old. So I mean, at this point in time,

Ryan Fairchild: 37:19

It's like it's like Star Wars. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Vader is Luke's dad. Right. Sorry, everybody. You didn't know that.

Kyle Warren: 37:25

Right? You don't like so? Like, when Dom like? Yeah. Are you going to play it? First of all, because I don't want to ruin it for you if you're going to play. Okay,

Ryan Fairchild: 37:31

I've got such a backlog on games, don't worry.

Kyle Warren: 37:33

I mean, so you probably forget at the time but like what but Dom like fight like his like he's like in the search for his wife cuz like the world is like, overrun by locusts and in the whole army, and like, it's basically their job to like, fight through that. And, you know, basically a lot of people been wiped out, you know, it's just kind of like a newer, it's like a different take on zombie apocalypse. It's just a different.

Ryan Fairchild: 37:52

Yep.

Kyle Warren: 37:52

Same concept, same premise of a different take. But like, he finds like his dead wife. And it was just like, but, but they did. But they do such in for a game that was as arguably is as old as Halo like this storytelling in that game. The way like I was attached, like Marcus and Cole and Dom and like these people, like I have an emotional connection with. So like when

Ryan Fairchild: 38:14

you have a parasocial relationship with video game characters.

Kyle Warren: 38:17

I do, man. And it was the first time that

Ryan Fairchild: 38:19

I've got some, too

Kyle Warren: 38:19

that's ever happened, man, I'm like, first

Ryan Fairchild: 38:19

Yeah. But I mean, but to be fair, like, I and foremost, especially at that time, you know, we were in a much different conversation with video games, where we were still wondering if playing games with strangers on the internet was socially acceptable. You know, like, I remember my mom, like when I tried to like, I wanted to go to an esports competition, read a lot of books and comic books and stuff. You do that all I got invited to play as an amateur on an amateur team as a substitute for a Halo 2 team. And like, I remember thinking the time. Like, you have TV shows, you're like, Yeah, you do about asking my mom, but I'm like, there's no way that my mom that all the time. So don't be embarrassed, by it. is gonna let me go to Dallas to play video games with a bunch of strangers I met online, you know? So, on top of that, it still felt very weird that I was experiencing that parasocial

Kyle Warren: 38:57

we do. I mean, but that it was at that time relationship with a non.. with a with a fictional character.

Ryan Fairchild: 39:11

It's actually very normal.

Kyle Warren: 39:14

Today, I'm very comfortable with it, like, and then I evolved the Game of Thrones, and then, you know, that whole emotional roller coaster for eight seasons.

Ryan Fairchild: 39:21

Oh, yeah.

Kyle Warren: 39:22

I'm actually rewatching the series I started, just finished season one again. So you know, it's it. You know, like, when Ned.. it, I cried. I'm just like, Oh, my God, like, yeah, so heart wrenching, and they do such with the music and the way off topic, but, you know,

Ryan Fairchild: 39:39

when are we going to have that in esports? When are we going to cry over you know, like, you know, Skadoodle when he won, you know, there are definitely people who cried. Yeah, he was crying. Other people are probably crying.

Kyle Warren: 39:50

Even in COD. You know, when when Prestini and Arcitys these were on the same team and then they like it and then one of them beat the other one and like it was like an emotional like they cried on stage and it was like a It was a huge deal, man, you know,

Ryan Fairchild: 40:01

Human experience, man.

Kyle Warren: 40:03

Yeah. Which, which kind of like, I wonder because not not not that but like, kind of reason I said, I wonder is going back to the topic of like in person events like, I cannot wait to have in person events again, like I, you know, they built like the Esports Arena here in Dallas, they, you know, I know, they're building one up in Toronto that's got all the fancy bells and whistles in it too. You know, there's, there's a lot of things that are happening around that. But I just, and I know, Activision, like laid off a bunch of staff because like, they're wanting to change the direction of how it's going to be virtual or in person eSports events happen. Like, I just wonder, like, I just wonder, like, are we gonna have to choose whether it's more in person or online or like what the relationship between online events like that also have the in person element because like, I feel like esports has changed, and I had a blast watching it online. But I just wonder if Are we just going to be so desperate to come back to in person events that we're going to forget about? Or not forget about, but put less attention to the online viewership? Or is there going to be like, an evolution of both like, where they both like, come together harmoniously. And we have this like, I don't even know what I'm trying to say. But it's like this.

Ryan Fairchild: 41:13

Yeah, no, I get it.

Kyle Warren: 41:14

Yeah. Yeah.

Ryan Fairchild: 41:17

I think I mean, if you look at sports, there are a lot of people who watch TV, cable, whatever, streaming. And then there are a lot of people who go in person. And I think with esports, the question is not will we hit that point? And when we hit that model, I think the question is, will publishers actually continue to support esports in a way where we can actually see that happen? Because I think in person events are absolutely key to esports, one way or another. And I don't know that the right model is sort of the let's do sports, where people are playing each other every week sort of thing. Yeah. Versus sort of the let's have, let's do a lot of online play, where then we come together for like, a three day tournament, or something like that, or we do a traveling tournament series or something like that. But I think the question is, will a publisher sort of support that or allow that? Because, like, Smash is gonna live forever, regardless of what Nintendo thinks, Smash is going to be played competitively forever, regardless of like, what Nintendo thinks it's going to be, you know, even if it's small venues, like Evo, Evo, to me is still like the, one of the greatest gaming experiences to go to, like, I find, so I used to work, like I said, a mini golf arcade place way long ago, and playing those buy in tournaments. And going back to Evo, I was like, oh, it literally hasn't changed in 20 years. It's just, it's just gotten bigger. Yeah, like, and now we use a bullhorn instead of just yelling across. You know, like, they're still using paper brackets. It's like, they're still writing stuff in like..

Kyle Warren: 42:58

The power nostalgia man. That is the power of nostalgia. Like it's, it's been done this way. It's always gonna be done this way. It has, you know,

Ryan Fairchild: 43:05

yeah, insane. But like that, I mean, that's gonna keep happening. Like, unless a publisher fully says, like, No, you can't do it anymore, which doesn't really make a lot of sense for publishers, just because it's free eyeballs on your game. It's free promotion.

Kyle Warren: 43:17

Yeah.

Ryan Fairchild: 43:19

So I think eSports is always going to be live in some event, are always going to have live events in some way. Also, another thing I'll add to is a lot of people ask me who aren't familiar with the space and they'll say, oh, esports must be doing great during the pandemic. And I'm like, like, content creators, influencers are doing great, like Twitch is doing great. YouTube's doing great, anything where you're watching content, but esports is not doing well, because live events are still the lifeblood of esports. I mean, thats

Kyle Warren: 43:49

Got it

Ryan Fairchild: 43:49

Really where eSports is happening. So I think in one way or another, it will happen like that. It's just a question of, will the publishers allow it and support it? Like, will we have esports? As we kind of know it right now? Will it grow? Will it develop?

Kyle Warren: 44:04

Yeah, and and that's, well, I mean, only time will tell but like, I whatever this new normal will be, I think it's, it's gonna be an interesting thing for esports. But something that I like, when you were talking about something that struck me, like when you were talking about, like, we still haven't really like calcified the space or like we haven't really like, said like, this is a tier one. esport This is a tier two esport This is like, you know, we haven't really defined that with like, the games, I feel that it's a challenge because with the with the way technology advances, I mean, like, there's players are always wanting something more and if something evolves even more, you know, how are we ever going to get to that spot where it just says, like, you know, we all agree as a collective community like, this is a tier one esport This is a tier two, and like, I just I don't, I don't see that happening. And so it just begs the question of like, will it will everything just exist? Yeah, nothing will ever become like that, like sports.

Ryan Fairchild: 44:59

I think that's a possibility, honestly, I, oh, and also just, I have a thunderstorm going on. And so if I just like cut out, don't be surprised. So I think that esports could exist in sort of it's close to ideal form, anywhere between like, I used to, say five years to never. And now I actually think it's farther out than that. I think it's like 10 years to never. And I know the space does move quickly. But I don't think that IP law changes quickly enough. And that publishers mentalities change quickly enough and with who we have in the space right now, like Unless, you know, a new challenger approaches, or something like that, which happened with Fortnite happened with Epic. So it could be that some publisher comes out with a new game where we're like,"Whoa, this is the game"

Kyle Warren: 45:48

and you look Halo Infinite, it hasn't been released yet. There's a lot of like,

Ryan Fairchild: 45:51

hasn't been released yet. Yeah, there's a lot of hype around that. Yeah, I played, I definitely played some Halo in my day, I actually had a roommate back in college who was sponsored and made some money from it back in the day. And I was like, "Wait, what?" Like, I was still kind of curious how that happened. And that was, you know, back in 2008, or something.

Kyle Warren: 46:09

Yeah.

Ryan Fairchild: 46:10

So yeah. So, you know, I hope it happens, just because like, I love esports. Like, I would actually love If I could focus more on this particular section of the entertainment world and didn't have to broaden my practice out to other places, just because it's so much fun. Like esports events are so much fun. There's so cool to go to. And for anybody watching who hasn't been to one. I mean, like, honestly find a way to get to a Counter Strike event, get to a Dota, whatever your game is, whatever your game is, go find one because there are a ton of fun.

Kyle Warren: 46:43

I might you know, what's funny, is as much as I've been a fan of the space, my very first event was the very traditional, like MLG, where they did like, two games at once in the same arena. It was Yeah, it was Halo 5 and Gears of War. And it was like a $30 ticket in Louisiana. And I'm like, for the whole weekend, I'm like, okay, but but you're around a bunch of people, you're around just a bunch of people with an extremely tight niche community. And I heard now as funny as much of a Halo fan as I am, you know, and I am fan of Gears of War as well, like, the side station that Gears of War across the arena was actually overshadowing the casters on the microphone with how much they were talking shit and how much they were like trash talking. And it's like, I don't know that, to me. It just goes to show like those events are just incredible. And they're not at the point where it's like an NFL ticket where it's like 90 bucks for the top section. You know, there? Yeah, it's pretty, like it's pretty mainstream.

Ryan Fairchild: 47:35

It's reasonable.

Kyle Warren: 47:36

Yeah. Yeah. And, um, wanted to, you know, something that I've, I've looked up recently is that like, you know, talking about valorant and zooming in on the Sentinels, and then when like, and then winning that whole issue with like cloud nine and Tenz, Tens or Tenz. I don't know how it's officially pronounced. Yeah, just Tenz. Yeah, I mean, so, you know, when it comes to like player contracts, I mean, it seems like we're in this era. And I'll give like one example, that's kind of in the entertainment. But it's not in video games, where, you know, Dave Chappelle kind of put his foot in the ground with Netflix and said, in all the said, Stop doing this until I get paid, and they actually had to abide by it. Even though he signed a contract. You know, that probably gave them the right to do whatever they wanted to do. He still had a community behind him that literally rallied and said,

Ryan Fairchild: 48:25

Yeah,

Kyle Warren: 48:25

and they stopped. Therefore, the company lost profits, they had to abide. And he got his way to when it comes to like, the legal space and player contracts, like how like fluid is that? You know, like, how binding are these contracts? And is it like, is that a major problem?

Ryan Fairchild: 48:40

Yeah, well, that goes to a general question about contracts. So let's, let's do a little legal 101 here. Okay. So there are criminal laws. And then there are civil laws and contracts fall all on the civil side of thing, as long as you're not doing anything illegal, right? As long as they're not touching. "Like, we're gonna have a contract to, like, sell heroin to people." Like that's an illegal contract, which is void, by the way, like, you can't make a contract to do that. But otherwise, you know, in our realm, you know, I haven't seen any sports contracts where people are contracting to sell heroin, thankfully.

Kyle Warren: 49:15

Yeah. Yeah.

Ryan Fairchild: 49:16

But yeah, good, good base. Yeah. So we're on the civil side, and then the civil side. Their contract is like its own area within the civil side of law and breaches of contract are not considered like morally bad things. They're they're not tortious and torts are not cakes, but they are things like negligence, assault, you know, things that we basically consider bad as a society but not so bad that we make them criminal.

Kyle Warren: 49:44

Gotcha.

Ryan Fairchild: 49:45

It's just like there are penalties associated with them. Civil penalties so Money, money damages, typically things like that. Breaching a contract is not considered a moral failing. It's it's an economic decision. So With esports contracts, they're well, just with contracts Generally, the law is sort of like a weird onion. And that, really your ability to sort of enforce things. It happens in layers. So if we take a contract, for example, there's the layer of what does the contract say? And then there's a layer of how do the parties actually act? And that because, for example, I tell people, like a good contract will not save you from a bad org. But a badly worded contract could you could be saved from that by a good org. So like, if the org treats you well, you know, who cares? If it's a junk contract, like as long as the expectations of the parties are met, then, you know, what's in the contract? Almost in some ways, doesn't matter. Unless there's a dispute. I saw the.. [dog gets up] yep, there she goes. We're gonna get some barking. So

Kyle Warren: 50:55

yeah, we may.

Ryan Fairchild: 50:57

So after that, if something does go wrong, there's the question of like, Alright, does the contract help us to resolve whatever the conflict is? And then there's the question of do the parties actually follow it? And then if they don't follow it, is somebody willing to enforce the contract? And then if they do try to enforce the contract through legal means, does the court actually read the contract the way that you wanted it to be read or that you think it should be read? And then can you enforce whatever the court says? So the court says, "Yeah, you win you need to get, you know,$20,000 from them" Can you get them to pay you that? Like, can you go collect on assets, things like that. So there's all these different layers that go into it. People are like, "Oh, I signed a contract, like the contract is law. And it is from on high and you must abide," and it's like, it's, there's so much more going on there practically. So one question now that we've sort of given

Kyle Warren: 51:52

That helps

Ryan Fairchild: 51:53

legal 101 baseline, is, are players willing to breach and take that risk? In order to sort of take a stand and put up for something? Right? So there are all sorts of issues to getting before that, like, has the player read the contract? Do they know what's in the contract? Did the team mislead them about what's in the contract? Are you willing to like kind of put up or shut up when it comes time to enforce? There's that enforcement question, right? Like, there's fighting the uphill battle? Like where if you signed a bad contract, and you think like you were pressured into it, like duress is a really high standard to try to get out of a contract, you know, "was a gun to your head? No?" then it's gonna be really tough. Yeah. If a gun was to your head, then you know, maybe we've got a good argument. But so there's all these dynamics that go into this. And will you at some point Tfue sued, Tfue, who sued FaZe clan. And so we have that somebody was willing to try to enforce contract on their terms. And then there were some issues with what was in the contract. So a judge said, Hey, this is governed by New York law and Tfue was like, "oh, that shouldn't matter. We should stay in California. Because, you know, I'm in Florida, they're in California. There's no real connection in New York. Judge in New York," Venti said, "Nope, I get it." And then got, you know, Tfue, who got some decisions that maybe he wouldn't have gotten in California, maybe he would have. But eventually the party settled. And so you see those layers come into play of Okay, a player took a stand on a contract tried to enforce it, judge said some things that maybe the player didn't like, and then eventually, we reach some sort of settlement. I really wish that case would have gone farther, but I'm sure if the parties it was best for it to settle the way it did.

Kyle Warren: 53:47

Yeah. Probably financially.

Ryan Fairchild: 53:51

I haven't actually seen that. Yeah, I haven't actually seen the terms of the settlement. I doubt anybody will see the terms of the settlement, but other than parties.

Kyle Warren: 53:58

Yeah.

Ryan Fairchild: 54:00

I would be very interested to see them though.

Kyle Warren: 54:02

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It kind of it, you know, that makes that makes sense. Because I had a very kind of read, even with my current day job, it's like, the, my knowledge and my understanding of contracts was very, like, rigid, and it there was no fluidity to it. And it was like, you know, like, if this is it, there's just so much, it helps take a little bit of pressure off of it, because my view of it was, like, there's so much pressure that everything has to be exact, and it can't be broken, and it can't be this or that. But, you know, in reality, though, like, if no one ever takes a stand, and How will anyone ever be able to, like, decide what's right or wrong? You know, like, if it's always gonna stay the same, if it's never gonna change. If no one tries to break the mold, you know, then we're always going to be thinking the same way and that then becomes the norm. You know? So, it, it kind of it's a weird, it's a weird topic, and I just, I was kind of fascinated by you know, the whole Tenz thing with sentinels, like the fact that he was able to compete then he won, but then they had already signed the contract like before the Masters that even happened apparently, you know what I mean?

Ryan Fairchild: 55:07

Who had signed the contract?

Kyle Warren: 55:09

So like like, like they had like sentinels in in Cloud 9 supposedly, like had like already had the contract like agreed to before the Masters.

Ryan Fairchild: 55:20

Yeah, I can't go into too much because I know some inside baseball stats.

Kyle Warren: 55:24

Okay. Yeah, fair enough. Fair enough. So on on that, you know I saw one of your tweets recently it was like you know you recently got your on the NALCS? I think it is yeah, any LCS Players Association, and you'd mentioned that, like players associations were something that you had always had like a fascination in, you know, when you were studying law? Like, tell me a little bit about that man.

Ryan Fairchild: 55:45

Yeah, so it wasn't so much when I was studying law as when I was approaching esports.

Kyle Warren: 55:49

Okay, okay.

Ryan Fairchild: 55:50

I mean, it was kind of a natural fit, because criminal justice reform along with like labor issues, they sort of fit together well. But when I started looking into esports, and realized sort of the dynamics with the publisher, and the teams and the players, is like, "man, if you think about esports, really, the product, if you will, is a combination of a video game and players coming together. And that forms the product like video games without high skill players. It's it's a different form of product, it is a video game just in and of itself. It's not an esport. Players without a game. Like they're not an esport, either, like, I don't even know what that is. So when you have the two together, that's really the product. And so my thought was, publishers have, by and large, the most power in the space, but after that players do, because they're really they're half the product. Yep. And they're the ones who the public is going to rally around.

Kyle Warren: 56:50

Yep.

Ryan Fairchild: 56:50

Unless teams get independent brand status, which they're working on. Because right now, I mean, one of the things I was writing about back in this era was that fans focus much more on on players than they did teams. So if a player moved to a different team, you followed the player.

Kyle Warren: 57:08

Yeah.

Ryan Fairchild: 57:09

We see that sound with like, you know, some people do that with, we call them Fairweather fans where they jump around wherever LeBron James.

Kyle Warren: 57:17

Yeah, they're LeBron fans

Ryan Fairchild: 57:17

And then you have the people who burned his Jersey whenever he went away from wherever. You got the dog jumping around, I'll talk for a while.. [dog barks] oh yeah, she's excited! So going back to, what was my point we were getting onto? Players Associations... so, because you have the backing of the public, by and large, with the players, and because you're half the product and because oftentimes the publishers, at least with like Valve, Valve tended to list n to players more than they w uld listen to teams. And like Epic for example, Epic co ld have cared less if teams di not exist in that space, like they saw them as absolute midd eman and just kind of ignored hem. Which at first I was like, t's like kind of mean. And hen I thought about it more. I was like, no, that just makes ense with the way they're doin things, like does Tiger Wood have a team? No, he just get his own sponsors so like why ould you... Fortnite is much more like a Tennis Circuit or Golf Circuit, so why would you e tertain teams? So we'll see. Ri ht now the Players Association or the NA LCS, like, we're more eared towards sort of the found tional work of just trying to keep the players better nformed of what's going on, i stead of having like, you kno, teams, and the league being t e main parties who are sort of alking to each other, we want to be in on all those conversa ions as well. So that we can h ve that voice for the players in those conversations so that we an get information to take ba k to the players. And then from there, it's gonna be alright what are the interests of the layers that we need to start p rsuing, and we're already havi g those conversations as ell. Phil is doing a fantastic j b his executive director, an I really think is, I don't eve think people realize how goo Phil is for this particular position, and why his backg ound is so good for it

Kyle Warren: 59:16

That's awesome, man. And I think, you know, there's, there's a lot to learn, like coming, because we've talked about like, will esports ever like calcify? Will there ever be like a standard? And there may not be and so I look at you know, companies that like, Okay, what is the current meta? Like, what is like the current like, Where's the most eyeballs where it like, who are the leaders in the industry? And you look at like Riot and they seem to be doing okay, you know, they seem to be doing alright, and they seem to be the ones who are innovating the most in this space. And so it's this weird thing of like, it kind of makes you it kind of makes me wonder, though, like is that they're having all these conversations with the teams, but they also seem very, like, open to players rights, you know, like, it kind of makes you wonder like, how like, why it all isn't just like one thing all together. And I just say that kind of like, because the publisher kind of seems to have like this relationship with the teams, and they're approving this Players Association, who also has a seat at the table. You know what I mean? So,

Ryan Fairchild: 1:00:11

well, we should be, we should be careful about how we word things too, like, they initially helped to set up to players Association, but it wasn't like they could get their blessing. The players still could have gone out and done that on there.

Kyle Warren: 1:00:23

Okay. Okay.

Ryan Fairchild: 1:00:23

Regardless of what right it said. So I just want to make sure that's clear.

Kyle Warren: 1:00:27

Okay. Got it. Got it. So yeah, it's just kind of a question that I had, but like err, just kind of like a thought, you know, just as someone who's like a spectator. But when it comes to like, the trailblazers in the team, and like, to me, it seems like they're, they are the ones who are following or they're creating the mold for other esports to follow. But I look at a talking about half lives, you know, when it comes to a game like Call of Duty, I mean, one of my things, like, one of the reasons why they haven't seemed to like quote unquote, figure it out is that there's a new Call of Duty every single year, like, the game never gets enough time to mature. And that, to me, like really irritates me as as a fan, because I like, I grew up on Modern Warfare, 2, you know, and we've, and I also like black ops two, and I, like, you know, the new Cold War. But, you know, there was a lot of games in there that I thought were trash. But at the same time, though, like, you never give the devs I feel like you're cheating everybody, like you're cheating the pro players, you're cheating the devs. Because the devs could have something in a pipeline a year and a half, two years down the road. But the game needs to mature in the competition, needs to mature to a point where that becomes relevant, or like, how can we evolve it? And how can we help?

Ryan Fairchild: 1:01:34

Yeah.

Kyle Warren: 1:01:35

because we proven that with Counter Strike. It's like a, like, 80 gazillion year old game, you know, and it's still one of the most viewed games, like, yeah, and the graphics are so terrible, but it has one of the highest viewer counts, you know, and it's still so popular.

Ryan Fairchild: 1:01:48

That is the benefit, you know, Valve is great for something it's bad. I think valve, if they put more effort into their esports could absolutely crush it. Like, absolutely crush it. I think Dota could return as the biggest MOBA. I think that Counter Strike could be the biggest FPS. I think, you know, they could do a lot of things. But again, Valve's interests might not align with that yet. And so until you get a publishers interests aligned with the esport overall, and I think Riot is the closest to that instance, right, like, Riot wants to make it work. At least that's every indication, and everything I've heard is that they want to hear

Kyle Warren: 1:02:27

Their actions, show it.

Ryan Fairchild: 1:02:29

Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, maybe they're just trying to starve out the other publishers and then they're like, now "Yeah, we we are esports!" Right. But that one, until, until you get that really good alignment of interests, you're not going to see fully fledged esports. So I've always said you're either going to need a change in intellectual property law, you're going to need a benevolent dictator of a publisher. Or, and that's it really like it's going to be one of those two things. I think blockchain offers some interesting opportunities. Like I mentioned before, where maybe you put a game out on the blockchain and you say, okay, community, you can do whatever you want with this. Excuse me, and then we just get a certain amount of revenue that comes back because it's all you know, on the ledger. But again, I'm a blockchain neophyte, I I don't even know if that would work. Like my baseline reading is that it would, but I could be wrong. And so maybe somebody in the chat comes and tells me you're an idiot. wouldn't be the first time so

Kyle Warren: 1:03:32

Yeah, see, I've seen I've seen Twitter. I see. I've seen your tweets sometimes. Are the comments below your tweets? Oh, yeah. No. But you know, I kind of think I look at it from a different lens in in the like, I feel like I look at it from a very small niche within the crypto community like I'm very similar to you. I'm not I'm still very green. I'm not I'm not like, I'm not like a I haven't studied it for years. I know a lot of people have but I look at it more along the Ethereum and non fungible token, you know, aspect of it where, you know, you have, you can, like his Call of Duty had Well, I mean, every game Well, a lot of games have now Fortnite, Call of Duty, Valorant you know, have all proven that, like, people love to purchase digital items, improve digital ownership in game, like Valorant to me has some of the coolest skins out there and no one can tell me otherwise. Like it's

Ryan Fairchild: 1:04:20

Yeah,

Kyle Warren: 1:04:21

and I actually paid$100 for a package set. It was unbelievable, but you know,

Ryan Fairchild: 1:04:25

Oh wow,

Kyle Warren: 1:04:26

I bought the brand new green vandal, the all that all that set, but it's, it's cool man, like I like I appreciate digital art. Like that's something I didn't know I appreciate it before. And NFT's fully like, came out and now that you can have a way for people to get to have real ownership in that. That to me is special when you can prove ownership on this chain. I look at it as we're going to get to the spot where, again, this is one element of it. You know, it's all going to there's going to be deeper conversations around how the game is developed and how it's pushed out. But I look at it as more Have these creative assets where, say Fortnite makes a one? Like they make a limited edition of 50 skins. You know? And then you can, number one create a secondary market for those skins. But number two, what if those skins were able to be transferred to another game on another weapon on another like will games evolved to that point where you can like literally transfer that token and spray it on different guns, different players different aspects of the game and like, it gets a little heady but like, that's the way I look at it as a you create.

Ryan Fairchild: 1:05:31

Yeah.

Kyle Warren: 1:05:32

And then what if these publishers have these artists that can make their own money by creating those these own skins? What happens to the publishers then? You know, so?

Ryan Fairchild: 1:05:41

Yeah,

Kyle Warren: 1:05:41

it's it's a very interesting topic. But I, I don't know, I haven't got to the point where I have a thesis on it. But like, I, I think there's a huge cross section between esports and gaming and just gaming in general and the blockchain, I think it plays a massive role in its development or in its growth.

Ryan Fairchild: 1:05:58

Yeah, no, I think it'll be really interesting to watch. And I think we're an iteration away on NFT's in terms of being being there. Like, we're not there yet.

Kyle Warren: 1:06:08

We're not, no no no

Ryan Fairchild: 1:06:10

But we're one iteration away, I think. And it'll be interesting, because you need the alignment of a lot of different things in order to do that. But if it aligns, it's really exciting.

Kyle Warren: 1:06:20

Yeah.

Ryan Fairchild: 1:06:21

Like, if it does come in and align right, then it'll be it'll be really good. Because Yeah, I mean, the thought of being able to take something between games even is really, really fascinating. And one thing I've always worried about on that angle is are the publishers gonna allow that because the publishers, I mean, they want to put each other out of business, oftentimes, like, I mean, if Activision Blizzard could say, you can only come to us for esports. I mean, it, you know, we're gonna get rid of Riot and Valve, why wouldn't they do it? So I've always wondered about the incentives there too, because again, going back to that model of like, it's not intentional obsoletion with games, but there is the, we're gonna release new games every year in case of COD. We're going to, you know, release new titles. And the old title is going to go away like Nintendo, right? Like, they wish that they could delete melee, right? Like, they wish to like smash ultimate, were the only version that were out there. And they could, you know, somehow reach into my house and grab my N64. And Chuck, like, you know, maybe not that bad. But what they want is see, because I always wonder why wouldn't a publisher want to make you pay to move your stuff over or make you just buy new stuff again, right? Like, hey, we just made virtual stuff, zero marginal cost to us. Why wouldn't we want to just do that all over again, and make you pay money again? So they're probably people smarter than me figuring out how to solve that. But yeah, well, we'll see. Anyway, that's my big skepticism about it.

Kyle Warren: 1:07:54

Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, I, we literally was just announced today, like the the partnership with or not, I don't know, it's partnership, but it's like a naming change with TSM. You know, where they I don't even know what you call it agreement where it was like the it

Ryan Fairchild: 1:08:09

Yeah, the naming rights.

Kyle Warren: 1:08:10

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that was, yeah, that's a huge

Ryan Fairchild: 1:08:14

So they do that for arenas in traditional sports. Right. Like, yeah,

Kyle Warren: 1:08:20

It's kind of it's fascinating to see. And, and that's, uh, and I think it's FTX. I can't remember the I can't remember the FTX is the network. Like, they have a lot of financial terms when I started looking up their information that like, I need to do some more research on like, who they are and what they do. But you know, that regardless of like, my knowledge of that specific coin and token and service that they're providing, like, just what has happened has to me done solve a lot of problems. Number one, it's the firt it's the most public deal that has been like very Trans.. they've been very transparent about, like, what this means and how much it costs, you know, versus like, I know, I know, there was a like a Tencent, you know, Tencent owns a lot in the gaming space. And like, they basically sold a media rights company to a company that they own majority ownership. And it's like, hey, like, is this a good deal? Oh, yeah. Hey, okay. Yeah, sure. Let's make this and then they publish it. And it's like, it's not it's not you know, it's it's it's two completely different companies merging together to hopefully solve a common problem. And

Ryan Fairchild: 1:09:19

Yeah.

Kyle Warren: 1:09:20

I don't know. It's number one's the most public deal. It's been made. But number two is, is that it? You know, it's the first light people are starting to get curious about cryptocurrency and gaming and how, you know what I mean?

Ryan Fairchild: 1:09:32

Yeah. Oh, and, like, it might read, like, like I said, if my superficial read on blockchain generally is correct. Then like, it's gonna be huge. It's gonna be transformational. And I've had some really smart people who also... oh my gosh, can you can you hear all that or

Kyle Warren: 1:09:49

Not not loud, but like, I can't. It's kind of funny there. Yeah.

Ryan Fairchild: 1:09:54

Yeah, I feel like they've chosen like literally right outside the door to wrestle, like that's the only place in the house where they can wrestle is right. outside my door

Kyle Warren: 1:10:00

Right

Ryan Fairchild: 1:10:01

and into the door from the sounds of it Even so, um, so I've had some very smart people who aren't like, I hate to say cultists BB crypto cultist.

Kyle Warren: 1:10:14

Yeah.

Ryan Fairchild: 1:10:15

They they are the fanatical what it is yeah. who still say things like, I think this can be close to as transformational as the internet.

Kyle Warren: 1:10:24

Yeah.

Ryan Fairchild: 1:10:25

And it's like that is a really big statement coming from some very smart people who I respect a lot. And I'm talking about people in like, like, I'm not talking about the the evangelists who get on to podcasts and stuff, right? I'm talking about some people who I trust in private conversations talking about this. And I wasn't sure what I thought about it until I did start doing a little bit of reading. And I was like, okay, like the tech, I don't understand the tech.

Kyle Warren: 1:10:49

Right.

Ryan Fairchild: 1:10:49

But if what they are saying about the tech is correct, then I could see how transformational it could be.

Kyle Warren: 1:10:56

Yeah.

Ryan Fairchild: 1:10:56

And so for for esports. Again, though, the question is, will a publisher put those rights out there onto a blockchain? Will somebody come out and say, Alright, we're gonna do this, and we're gonna see how it goes. Because my thought has always been whichever publisher finally allows the community to just fully run with it and finds a way to take just some percentage, but otherwise, let's it to run free. They're going to realize that they're going to make money for ever, right? They're gonna make money forever.

Kyle Warren: 1:11:26

Yeah, smart contracts. Yeah, yeah.

Ryan Fairchild: 1:11:29

Yeah. Imagine if Nintendo could just get like 5% of Smash revenue, like, you know, prize pool by whatever it is, like, yeah, you can go go do whatever we Smash, and we get 5% of the monetary value, like money forever.

Kyle Warren: 1:11:47

And it happens automatically. Like, there's no, there's no, it doesn't pass through hands. It doesn't like, you know, it just, it happens. And it just gets it gets wired over. I can see that. You know what I mean?

Ryan Fairchild: 1:12:01

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. It's just, it's all there.

Kyle Warren: 1:12:04

But But, but on the flip side, from part of the previous conversation, though, is like, Okay, if the game digs, the publishers dig in their heels, and I say no, but the community rallies around this idea. Will they ultimately force the hand in all.. Does that how is that how they get bought in or they're going to be more proactive versus reactive? When it comes to how this is adopted? If it gets adopted? You know what I mean? Cuz it still hasn't fully happened yet. So I want to

Ryan Fairchild: 1:12:27

Yeah, I don't want to speak too many things into the future that aren't true, but I want it to happen, but it hasn't happened. It's just something that you gotta wonder, because right now I see, I see a divide, I see people who understand the utility, who see the value behind it, who see what it could be. For me, I look at, I look at it, I look at getting kind of like, I call them IRL, people like but just like people outside of the gaming world, more practical people with normal normal jobs. Like how this will affect them in order to get buy in, you know, to this space. And I look at it as like, what if you, a lot of people want like ethically sourced

Kyle Warren: 1:13:04

You know what I mean? food, clothing. You know, there's a big deal around transparency around where these things are coming from, you know, NF T's and non fungible tokens on the global supply chain. You know, I mean? Imagine if you got to imagine if you went for a steak dinner Fleming's and you knew exactly where that steak came from.

Ryan Fairchild: 1:13:23

yeah. And, and there, there's, like, I was listening to a guy describe sort of how you need the verification nodes. Yes. Sort of provide. Yep. Because Because that seems to me to be like, the hardest thing is, you have to tie it to some reliable data source. And then, because yeah, I think it could be transformational for news as well. Like, which I actually think is a really big challenge we face right,

Kyle Warren: 1:13:45

I think so too.

Ryan Fairchild: 1:13:46

is authenticating news. So like, you know, how can you actually get to a point where like, No, actually fake news, like lit literally, like blockchain has shown it? So but then the question becomes, who's creating the data? And how are they controlling the data? Right, like, you need that that's where you start to get your your questions about the points coming in. So no, valid No, I

Kyle Warren: 1:14:10

mean, no valid. Yeah, you know, but I like that I'd say thanks for indulging that part. It's a it's a it's a new kind of like area of interest because I also see like, if you look at kind of like secondary like trading skin markets Yeah, I mean, CSGO proved it Call of Duty now is into it, you know, that like, like that whole I think that will create we're in this era where like secondary I think we're I think the secondary market is in its kind of like gold rush phase. And I'm hoping that it levels out and like we can see like a healthy like a healthy stabilization in it. I think right now it's just we're in these things where GPUs are, you know, sold out before you can get out when they're selling for five grand I but I see their big market like with NFT's and like valuable scans are like Limited Edition. 100 Thieves, you know, Like AR assault rifle skins, or assault rifle skins that can be transferred anywhere and you can prove that you own it. I think that there's a huge you people can create like online digital shops or like a digital metaverse shop where you literally have, like all of the rare collectible skins that you like, bought and sold and like resell for people who really want them. You know what I mean? Yeah, it's a wild concept.

Ryan Fairchild: 1:15:20

Yeah. No, it is, and it's gonna be interesting. It's gonna be really interesting to see what happens with all of that to you. I think the environmental impact is still something where there are some open questions. I know with like, coins, you know, you can do stake, and you can take some of that out. But the processing capacity i think is something we're gonna have to be thinking a lot about until we basically get better processing.

Kyle Warren: 1:15:44

Yeah.

Ryan Fairchild: 1:15:46

We'll see what happens here,

Kyle Warren: 1:15:47

True man. last topic. I want to touch on men and Oh, boy. It is what it is an easy one for you, man. It's the it's around the commotion in your in your house. I've seen a lot of your your kids Pokemon portraits.

Ryan Fairchild: 1:16:01

Oh, yeah!

Kyle Warren: 1:16:02

Tell me about that, man. Like, I got to know. I gotta know more about that. How did that come up? And you know, I love I first of all, I love that man.

Ryan Fairchild: 1:16:09

Yeah, so actually, I've got like my birthday drawing. There's Aizawa Sensei from My Hero Academia. And then, this is another one he did for a friend of mine.

Kyle Warren: 1:16:21

That's so cool. Man. Psyduck is a nostalgic character from my from my childhood.

Ryan Fairchild: 1:16:26

Oh, yeah. And so like, if you if you look at my wall right here, too. I've got

Kyle Warren: 1:16:30

Oh, that's cool.

Ryan Fairchild: 1:16:30

Got the ones he did for me lined up. You can't quite get all of them. But yeah, no. So wait, what was the question? Oh, sorry. I was it's so hyped to show things.

Kyle Warren: 1:16:40

Like that kind of that's what like what made me very interested in like, when I was following your social media, like it was a mix of law is a mix of like esports esports law, social issues lie and then your son Commission's Pokemon like, like, how did you get into that? And like, are is he like, kind of like, this is building his own, like brand around that? Are you kind of like teaching him how to do that?

Ryan Fairchild: 1:16:59

Oh, yeah, no. So we've definitely talked about it some too. And he's, he's kind of the oldest soul nine year old I've ever met. Like, he's very introspective. Like, he'll listen to NPR. And like, ask me questions while he's listening. And then come back like two days later and be like, "so I was thinking about our conversation of last Tuesday, Father," and you know, like, just, you know, not quite that bad. But you know, that sort of thing. He'll have follow up. And he'll have actually thought deeply about these things. And, you know, he's thinking about, you know, he's nine, and he's thinking about what he wants to do when he's 18, 20, 30. Like he was, he was looking into animation studios, and he was like, "Oh, they get treated like junk. Maybe I don't want to be an anime animator." But the way it got started, was he said, "Hey, Dad, you should buy" you know, he was doing art. Like, I remember when he was like three and drawing Ninja Turtles. And I was like, I haven't seen a lot of three year old Ninja Turtles. But I'm pretty sure these are better than other three year old Ninja Turtles.

Kyle Warren: 1:17:54

Yeah.

Ryan Fairchild: 1:17:56

And so yeah, he came to me and he was like, drawing Pokemon is like, "Hey, Dad, why don't you buy some Pokemon from me," I'm like,"fine, I'll pay you five bucks if you draw me the three original starters." And so he drew me one. And I was like, yeah, that's not bad, Bulbasaur. And then what happened actually was Charlie Yang. And Charlie Yang was my third connection to esports. He's been a friend for a long time now. Charlie was just like teasing me on Twitter. And for some reason, drew a Sudowoodo and said, hey, how do you like my Sudowoodo in the middle of like, trying to roast me as like, Where did this come from? And so Liam sees the Sudowoodo and he's like, that's not a very good Sudowoodo. And so I was like, oh, like, you should draw Charlie one. And we'll send it to him and say that, you know, my nine year old thinks your Sudowoodo is junk, Charlie. And here's how it's done. So he does that. And I go post it. I'm in, you know, a Discord server with a bunch of.. that Charlie sort of curates with a bunch of random esports people. And so I posted into the art part and I'm like, Liam, drew this for Charlie. And I send it to Charlie on Twitter, and he repost it saying, This is the most beautiful thing I've ever received. And we mail it to him. And so we had people like asking, like, "Oh, I want to Pokemon in the discord server." And so I was like, they're, they're like, How much? I'm like, "Look, I paid him five bucks for three pay him whatever you want," right. And we had three commissions, and then they posted them online. And then I retweeted them. And then I was like, you know, this is a really cool gift thing to like, so I was paying for his shipping. And so I was like, look, in exchange. And he actually told me this, he came up with the idea because he's altruistic apparently.

Kyle Warren: 1:19:31

Love That

Ryan Fairchild: 1:19:31

He was like, Dad, you've been paying for my shipping. "I'll let you have some commissions for free." And so I was like, fantastic. They're not technically for you because I paid for your shipping but I will, you know, get some for friends and clients and stuff like that, because it's cool. It's fun, right? Like, and they're actually decent. I mean, for the for a nine year old. Like, you know, some of them are their creative ideas. I don't know if you saw the the Wulu that he did recently. Yeah, but it was. Yeah, it was. It was a I think I just retweeted when we sent it to it. So it was for a friend Yen. And it was Snorlax dreaming. And so he had one cloud that just actually became a rain cloud, one cloud that then became like a Wulu, you know, flooding. And then one cloud that was like, sort of the inception of like him dreaming about dreaming this dream. And I was like, super creative just once, and he comes up with it on his own. Like, he'll look at drawings. He doesn't freehand, but like he comes up with all the backgrounds on his own. They're like, aesthetically, way better than like anything I could come up with. Like, and then actually there things were like, I hadn't realized some of the stuff he'd done it for. So he did. He did Charmander for Yasuo. And he had this really cool, like rainbow effect coming off of it. And I was like, that's a really cool rainbow effect. And then later, I realize I was like, those are Charizard's wings coming. And I hadn't realized it at first. Yeah. So he does, you know, he'll do a lot of like, the little sort of evolution thing and do them in cute ways. Oh, man. Yeah, now, there are a ton of fun.

Kyle Warren: 1:21:05

Yeah, cuz like I had a friend like that. And

Ryan Fairchild: 1:21:05

Yeah, we're still friends to this day. I've known him since elementary school. And I remember I was like, so honored, because he was putting art teachers to like, shame in fourth grade, you know, like, he was like, he was just pure raw talent just incredible. And I he actually built like, dragons picture, and I bring it up every time. And this is like 20. This is like 20 years later, and our friendship and like, I really like want him to like sell it to me one day, but I literally got to draw, he allowed me to draw all the little ticks of grass in this like picture that was like this large. And I just felt so honored. Because I'm like, this is just an incredible piece of artwork, you know, and you could never like, we didn't talk for about five, not five years. And then I remember connecting with

Kyle Warren: 1:21:48

with with the level of like, awareness that these him again. And I just remember, like, if you're not doing something with art, like, I'm going to be extremely upset because like the level of talent, especially like, especially like your boy, like, at that age, and he's already thinking introspectively and he's already thinking a little bit business minded. He's already thinking about like other people and how this affects them. Like, that's a bright future man, because I see a lot of kids in this day and age that are extremely entrepreneurial. And I feel like I missed that boat by like three or four years. Like I, I have a little bit of it. But like I look at some of like the, like the 15 to 25 year olds, and I'm just like, this is kind of insane. young kids have to really like, own their own talent and like create their own value and like build their own economies. You know what I mean?

Ryan Fairchild: 1:22:36

Yeah

Kyle Warren: 1:22:37

it's insane. No, it's shifting. It's definitely like the creator economy is definitely the thing right now. That's in bold, we'll see how it shifts. But yeah, yeah, man. Yeah. Well, Ryan, that that I really like, I think we covered a lot of different topics all over the place. I I appreciate you coming on and doing this. But last thing I really want to end with is that, you know, kind of like a just the question varies between the type of person I have, or the industry of person I have on here, but it's like, with the legal industry, what do you think that kind of like the biggest challenge that you're facing right now? Like, what do you think the solution or at least your idea of this solution is to propel that forward?

Ryan Fairchild: 1:23:16

Hmm, that's an interesting question. What is the biggest challenge right now? I still think it's the ownership of likeness and image rights. And I think it's a lot of educating players and content creators on how valuable those rights are, and getting them to buy into a lot of players. They just want to sign contracts and get paid and go play the game, and trying to get those players who are going to really stand up and push back on some of those things. I think that's finding the the whale players, the big players who are willing to really take a stand on that. So I think that's sort of the next big front. I think that's been the front that I've been interested in for a long time. I think players associations are going to potentially play a role in that

Kyle Warren: 1:24:04

Gotcha.

Ryan Fairchild: 1:24:05

Overall industry, though, like that, you know, that's very specific to me, and what I work on on a day to day basis, I think industry wide, it's going to be can we find a way to make the economics work? And is that like, going back to that, like, do we have that stratification where some teams just get out of certain esports and decide which ones they think are winners and which ones they think aren't? Do we get some teams out of the space, too? You know, is there consolidation? So, we'll have to see, because I still think like I said, you know, esports is 5 years or 10 years to never away from actually being in a place where it's sustainable and good. Some teams are figuring it out. But they're oftentimes doing it not just with the competitive side. I swear my children not bleeding, they're alive. If they're fine, this is normal. Do not call CPS plus Y'all don't know where I live, so I'm good.

Kyle Warren: 1:25:02

oui oui my like, like when I had puppies growing up, they would always like when I was either playing a game or my mom was working from home, it was like, they would choose the spot that was two foot away from whatever we were doing to just start playing and wrestling and start growling at each other. And it's like, there's a whole house, but you have to do it right here. You have to do it righthere,

Ryan Fairchild: 1:25:21

right there. Yep, yep. Yep. No, it's like, you know, I'll move somewhere else in the house to like, read and get some quiet and then they'll be like, Hey, what are you doing? And I'm like, trying

Kyle Warren: 1:25:31

to get away from you.

Ryan Fairchild: 1:25:33

Yeah, don't you don't say, you know, kids are great, especially when they're sleeping

Kyle Warren: 1:25:37

They are, yeah, I can.. trust me like with with my pup like I she's, she's a great people dog. She's great with humans. But when it comes other dogs, she's, she's very aggressive. And she's not shy about showing it. Then. So there's there's times where like I've had that tought, it's a normal thought. And I say that just to say be easy on yourself, man. Yeah, we'll call me Ryan. Last question. Where can people find you if they don't know where you're at? Where are you most active?

Ryan Fairchild: 1:26:03

Twitter is probably the best place@Fairchild nice and easy. I swipe that @ that recently that wasn't being used. So @Fairchild or you can google Ryan Fairchild and I'm typically the top results so pretty easy. And I had a scheduled tweet go out about the TSM FTX thing that I was waiting for primetime to show off for so I'm gonna go check how that did.

Kyle Warren: 1:26:25

Cool, man. Cool. Hey, Ryan. I hope you have a great rest your day. And again, thanks so much for coming on my friend.

Ryan Fairchild: 1:26:31

Yeah, no problem. Good to talk to you. Take care.