 a show devoted to all things eSports. I'm your host, Catherine Norr. Today, my guest is Micah Maderos, the owner of Empire Gaming. Our topic is why eSports update catching up with Empire Gaming and more. Welcome Micah. Hey, thank you for having me Catherine. All right, it's great to see you again today. We've had you on before, and actually our locations are right next to each other in Kaneohe. So what's going on with Empire Gaming? Oh, it's been a lot since we last came on. I think the last time I came on, Empire Gaming just started. And it's been now a little over a year, and we've gone through some ups and downs. So I don't know where you want to start. I guess for now I can kind of touch up. We did start in Warzone, right? When the last time I talked to you, I had brought some of my Warzone players. And since then we moved away from Warzone. I only have one player still in Warzone. The rest of them have gone on to do other things. And then we shifted our focus a little bit. Empire has a few things that we're working on. The first thing we're working on right now is we have an all women's apex team. Our goal is to push the women in gaming and to help give them support. And so we want to be the first organization to get an all women's gaming team into Pro League, which is the professional division of Apex. Has it been done in North America yet? And that's our goal right now. Wow, that's fantastic. How many women are on the team? So Apex for Pro League is three. So three women and a coach. We've gone through a few rosters trying to find what works, what doesn't work. The girls have to have good chemistry together. They're going to play a lot. The girls that we have right now, I mean, they play two scrimmages a day. They practice. So I would say at least six days out of the week, they're on the game anywhere from seven to eight hours in the day. So they're putting in a lot of time. We're bringing in coaches. We've brought in coaches from all over. We've brought in the Hundred Thieves coach. We've brought in another coach now who is playing in the CCs. He's been helping out. And then we had a few others. So it's been a journey. But the girls are excited. All right. What are the age ranges of the girls on the team? So for our girls, they're all in their low 20s to mid 20s. In gaming, as you know, once you start approaching the 30s, it's retirement age. And that's crazy to think, right? When you think of a job as 30s is retirement age. So they're all in their low to mid 20s. How do you recruit? That's a secret now. But it's a lot of work. So I do all of the recruiting right now. I do it all myself. And so what I've been doing is I inserted Empire into the APEC scene and then went from there. Found some girls who were interested and we kind of built and got to know the scene a little better. There is a women's scene that happens. It's more community driven than professional. So we're trying to put support there and then kind of meet some of our players in the women's scene. Oh, all right. Well, that's exciting. What are some future goals you have for the company? So outside of that, besides the women's APEC, we always want to tie back to Hawaii. So that's our big thing outside of the women's APEC. And what I want to do is I really want to put Hawaii on the map in eSports. That's kind of been a big goal of mine from the beginning. And rather than taking Hawaii to eSports, wherever it is in the mainland or internationally, I want to try and get eSports here. So I've had good conversations with Sky at UAH. I've talked with Jordan at HPU and we've kind of talked about things that we all want to do. So it's been a really good support system to make that happen. So yeah, we're trying to gauge what our scene looks like right now. As you know, with eSports, the online gaming experience is not the best here because of paying issues and things like that. So really our answer moving forward in my opinion is we have to get gaming here. We have to get LAN events here to put our players on the same type of level, if you will. So that's my goal. I really want to get some gaming events here. I want to get some LAN events running here. It's not very popular right now. So I'm hoping to start driving that. So do you think that eSports can become part of tourism for Hawaii so that players will come here to play but also to enjoy the beautiful environment? Absolutely. I kind of look back and I think of the days when the Pro Bowl would come and things like that. And I know there was a lot of background things with us paying them to come and things like that. But with eSports, it's so much so in its infancy still that we have the power to kind of build this, engage this and kind of point it in the direction that we want it to go. And so I think Hawaii can play a big role in that in that one. It's Hawaii, right? Everybody wants to visit, wants to kind of like see what it looks like, the beaches and they see all these pictures. So why can't we host these events? A good example is they just threw the first-ever Warzone LAN last year through Call of Duty sponsored and they went international. And so why not get them to come here? Why not make it the Hawaii event where all these players can come down, enjoy the beach, push tourism, really shopping and all the money that they'll spend there but also we can have an eSports event, throw it up someplace like the convention center or the blaze there or make something like that happen where we can have an arena that these eSports players can go and we can have a great event here. Yeah, what I would do is I would try to partner with Japan. The reason why is if you look at the Honolulu Marathon, it attracts 15,000 people or so and that's just the runners and then you get their families. And they've been Japanese people who have been, they've been coming here every year for the Honolulu Marathon so much that it has almost become a Japan event and they also come for the Great Aloha Run as well. And I would think you could probably get Japan eSports interested in doing events here or coming here. I think it's a matter of partnering with different, you're targeting different markets and I think that Japan market is probably a really good market. What do you think about that? You're absolutely right and I think that with these international partnerships, I'd like to talk with Skye at UH about it a lot because he's very experienced with that. He runs internships that go to Japan. He's had internships that go to South Korea. He does all these internships with these international destinations that he could really introduce them to Hawaii as far as eSports schools. And I think you're absolutely right. We already have the tourism that comes here and they love it and why not bring events here where even more tourists, whether it be Japan or even South Korea or wherever else, to come and participate. I think you could even get Germany. I think there are a lot of Germans that come and certainly eSports is big in Europe. And I think there's a lot of opportunity there that can be explored. Now, in terms of UH and HPU, what do you see is going on with kind of collegiate eSports right now and how that's in events that you see happening? I think collegiate is really blowing up right now. Collegiate is getting a lot of attention. This year at the eSports Awards, they made a whole collegiate event for the collegiate scene. And I think it's getting more and more recognition as colleges are picking up programs to participate. And as we build collegiate and these great programs, I think it'll be super important. And this is kind of where Empire kind of plays a good part in it is that if I'm focused on the professional side, it kind of gives a gateway for collegiate players who have something after they compete collegially, right? Is now maybe I have the avenue to go professional. And it really is kind of setting up like how a professional sports would go. Like maybe you play college football and then you go and you play in the NFL or whatever. I kind of can see it happening similar to where I want to go play collegiate eSports and then, hey, you know, Hawaii has a professional team. Let's go play for the Hawaii professional team. So I'm hoping that that's something we can build. Sure, sure. Of course, by the time they graduate from college, they're almost middle age. Yeah, we might have to have a shorter time frame. So are there any LAN events that are planned or coming up in Hawaii? Yeah, so we actually partnered up with HPU. They have their arena down there. And we also partnered up with a few other local organizations, but met up with each HPU and also met up with the Hawaii eSports Alliance casing over there. They've been a lot of help and we're going to throw an Apex LAN event. Originally, we hadn't slated for this month. We didn't realize that the Apex professional league qualifiers are happening at the same time. So yeah, we went ahead and we moved it. So the date is upcoming. I will announce it on the Empire social medias. They'll announce it on the Hawaii eSports Alliance pages. And I'm looking at somewhere in January. We're just not sure exact date until we get the CC schedule for Apex, which is another qualifying event. We want to make sure that we can get these teams out. And I think UH, their varsity Apex team is already showing interest in coming out, which is cool. They've been doing really well in the collegiate scene. So hopefully we'll get a lot of people out. It'll be totally free entry. Everything's covered already. We're going to giveaways. We'll have some prizes. It'll be a good time. All right. Fantastic. You know, we have a ninth island. Okay? So I was just there and I went to HyperX and I got a little tour of the arena. And I was just thinking that what better for Hawaii to do than to partner with our ninth island? Have you ever had discussions with Las Vegas or anyone there at HyperX or anything about doing something in Hawaii? I have not. But what's funny is that I did just go to the Esports awards and just so happened my seat, we were seated in a booth and the person next to me is the owner of the Las Vegas Inferno and he runs their organization there. So maybe we got something we could talk about. Yeah. I mean, I would think that it goes both ways. I mean, we have a whole bunch of Hawaii residents who constantly go to Las Vegas. But why not get Las Vegas people over to Hawaii and maybe bring some of the vibrant Esports activity that's going on there to Hawaii? Because I know that Las Vegas is pretty big in Esports. Right. You're absolutely right. And just talking with him with the Las Vegas Inferno and he was talking about some of the professional. They have a Las Vegas Legion, which is a CDL team. They have a few others. They're really growing in the Esports world, if you will. So yeah, I think it would work. Sure. Sure. Well, and what about sponsorship? Have you been able to attract sponsors for Empire Gaming? Are you looking for sponsors? So I'm definitely looking for sponsors. Being very transparent with Empire Gaming, with any Esports owner, I pretty much put everything in. Everything is through me. And sponsors are always a help, even for our events, even if it's just products from a sponsor to help get people out or whatever it may be. And I'm hoping with Empire, we can be the people to introduce local businesses into Esports. I'd like to see some of these smaller local businesses and not even necessarily monetary, but maybe we can put their business out for them or whatever kind of help we can provide to the Esports scene. There's a lot of people getting into Esports. So why not get these local businesses involved? So to ask your question, yeah, we're always kind of looking at sponsors. But I'm very selective. I do want to support local. So we've been reached. We've had companies reach out, mainland companies, more like apparel and things like that. But I really want to try my best to gear as local as possible. And anyone who's interested in reaching younger people, which it can be difficult, especially companies that want to bring in people, consumers, that are young, and they haven't been able to find an avenue to target that market yet. This is a great avenue. Absolutely. No, it really is. I actually had the privilege to go and check out the high school championships this past weekend at HPU. And Vanta was throwing on that event, and I was able to just go and sit down and enjoy, and they were playing a rocket league. And the amount of kids that showed up to these championships to play, I think Milani ended up winning it. But it was just crazy to see so many people watching Esports. It still blows my mind, because you can probably vouch for this, is that we've seen it from its smaller stages. And to see it slowly starting to catch traction even within our high schools here, all the way down to our middle schools, it's crazy. Do you think that parents are embracing it more favorably at this point? When you see kids engaging, do you think that the parents get that this is what their kids are going to be doing and support the interest? I think it's starting to change. When I was younger, my parents, they just looked at video games as just a waste of time. I mean, that's how it was, right? You're going to go play video games. But I think now, as more and more people are establishing a career in video games, and maybe not even a player, right? Some people might play and end up doing other things. People become owners, people become developers. There's all kinds of different avenues. And I think that's back where I kind of point it back to the college, to where somebody like, let's say UH, they have an Esports program that not only brings up players, but it's also people behind the scenes, tournament organizers, casters, other things that you can do in the Esports field. So I think as parents start to see that happening more and more, they're becoming more on board. And it's funny, because when I went to the arena to watch this past weekend, there was a mom and a dad sitting in front of me and watching them celebrate as they scored in Rocket League. It's such an awesome feeling to see parents support it. Yeah. And so you talk about HPU and UH, we know UH has attracted the Overwatch World Championships. But what about UH West O'ahu? Have you seen anything going on in their beautiful, amazing Esports venue? You know, I've heard of this venue. I actually have never seen it myself. I haven't talked to anybody from that side. But I would be curious to see. I've heard things. I think you were talking to me last time. It's a really nice place, but I just haven't had a chance to see it yet. Yeah, I'm surprised that they haven't really done much there. But okay, and speaking about venues, okay, one of the big things on the news for years has been Aloha Stadium and the Entertainment District. Do you see that as a possible place in the future to attract Esports events? Absolutely. I think if we can have it, I don't want to say built correctly, because I don't think there's a correct way. But if we can have it catered to host Esports, I think we could attract a lot of events. You look at a game like Counter Strike, when they do their big events. It is international, but they sell out big places. League of Legends sells out stadiums. We could potentially be building a state-of-the-art facility to host these types of events. We have that power right now. So I do see it playing a big factor. Sure. And you know, whenever they have these kind of huge events, just like the Honolulu Marathon, the economic impact is incredible to our island and to our state. So what do you, you know, we've been in this kind of strange time in our world where we had COVID and that kind of shut down traditional sports. Esports has become bigger and it sort of is growing exponentially. However, you know, I kind of wonder what you think about how it's growing post-COVID. Is it still continuing? Well, that's a really weird place to be. And this was a hot topic at the awards. And so what I think happens, you know, is when COVID came through and esports was really video games in general, you know, it was gaining traction. A lot of businesses kind of inflated the esports scene, right? They came in, there was a lot of sponsorships, a lot of involvement by businesses that wanted to get in like, oh, this esports thing is taking off. But what I think happened is when everything got inflated, you know, things from player salaries, values, whatever it may be, after we got through COVID and where we are now, I don't want to say got through, but where we are now, it's starting to settle. The dust is kind of settling. A lot of these bigger brands are now pulling out, you know, they're not getting the big return they thought they'd get. They were looking for quick returns. And I think now we're kind of in a, you know, they call it an esports winter, right? We're kind of settling. But I think things will balance. And for the businesses and the esports organizations and whatever esports involvement that these people have, for the ones that can kind of hold on through this, that can manage well through this, there's a lot of light on the other side. It'll take, it'll start to climb again. It's not to say that it's not climbing now, it just slowed down a lot. Things are balancing. People are starting to realize what salaries look like, what the actual value of these organizations look like. It doesn't look as high as it did during COVID, but it's just a balance. And once we kind of figure out these things, it'll be okay. Yeah, I think it's here to stay. It's just kind of balancing out. And, you know, during COVID, these non-endemic advertisers, they had big budgets and they didn't know what to do with them. So they put the money into esports. So you mentioned the awards. Where was it and what was the scope of the awards ceremony that you went to? Yeah, so the esports awards this year was in Vegas. So speaking of the ninth island, it was in Vegas. This is the second year they've done it in Vegas. And this year, this past year, they topped last year. They moved the venue in Vegas. They made it a little more intimate. A lot of people, you know, we're able to sit, like I said, I sat next to the Las Vegas Inferno owner and we're in like a booth and we're able to talk and chat about things. You know, it's a great event. Not only is it just an award show where they're handing out awards to all these deserving players and organizations and businesses, but they also do the day before a networking event. And they bring in a bunch of different businesses that are involved in esports. It could be a peripheral business. They've brought in Oakley. They've brought in a lot of these businesses to talk about what they look for, what, you know, what they're doing or where they came from. So it's a really cool event. So Micah, when you were in high school in Hawaii or in junior high, did you ever think you were going to have a career in esports or gaming? I dreamt of it. I dreamt it. Well, okay. There was, it was just starting to take off. I used to watch a lot of optic gaming and they were the up and coming thing at the time. And, you know, I wanted to be the great player. Did I ever think I would try and own an organization? No, not at all. But, you know, they say when you can't do it, you've got to find something else or whatever the saying goes. So here I am. You know, I would like to make this a full-time career and be able to, bring some of my players down here and get this really taking off. It's a slow and steady road. But yeah, I'm excited for this. What advice would you give someone who's interested in having a career in esports? I would say, depending on what you want to do, the very first thing is, well, really it's going to take some time. You've got to be patient with it. You know, you're going to have to, if you want to be a player, you're going to have to practice a lot. If you want to go and own your own organization, you're going to have to meet a lot of people. Like it's going to take time. It's not something you can just turn on and start doing. In a sense, you can start doing it, but to actually get to the point to compete professionally or to, you know, be really involved, you just can't give up and put in that time that it's going to take. So for Hawaii people, do you think that it's important to network in the esports industry with people in Hawaii, outside of Hawaii, or both? It's definitely both. And I can say this firsthand, you know, I've met a lot of the Hawaii gaming scene and I love it. You know, everybody in Hawaii, so they all have that aloha spirit, you know, and they're all so nice and so friendly. And when you go and meet people in the scene outside of Hawaii, you know, they're not all like that. And so, you know, when you go and you network with these people, you really learn different things from both sides, you know, from the Hawaii scene, they all understand the struggles we have with, let's say, something like ping, but you may go and talk with somebody who's not here. They don't understand that. So I think it's super important that you network with both sides so that they can understand what you're trying to do and where you come from. And then also, the people here can teach you valuable lessons on what kind of struggles or things that they're trying to overcome within eSports. So both sides are very important. You know, Hawaii people, if they talk to people in certain places in the U.S. or they talk to people in Africa or different countries, they're going to find out that they also have a lot of problems with ping. It isn't just Hawaii. And they have a lot of economic challenges. In fact, I at the eSports Trade Association Conference eSports Next that I went to in Chicago, I met a guy from Sri Lanka and he's been on the show as a guest. And think about that island. I mean, you know, there are other islands like Malta and stuff where they have some of the similar issues that Hawaii does. So, you know, we are not alone. Yeah, absolutely. No, it's crazy. And what's crazy to me too is that like when you do go and network outside in the mainland or like just even at the wars, when they ask you like, Oh, where are you from? Oh, you know, we're eSports Oregon. We're trying to make it out of Hawaii and they're like Hawaii, you know, Hawaii has like eSports or it's like, I mean, yeah, we do. So it's quite surprising. Yeah. All right. Well, Mike, it's been great to have you on here today. And we've learned a lot about what's going on in Hawaii and with Empire Gaming. Thank you for having me, Catherine. I'll see you again. I'm sure you got it. Anyway, thank you to our viewers for joining us today. We look forward to seeing you next time. Aloha.