 Welcome to the wide world of eSports, a show devoted to all things eSports. I'm your host, Catherine Norr. Today, we're talking about eSports in Hawaii. With me is Hawaii State Senator Glenn Wakai. Welcome, Senator. Hi. Thank you for having me, Catherine. It's a pleasure to be here. All right. Well, what sparked your interest in eSports? Well, when you look at the numbers, they're staggering, right? The last I looked, there were 2.7 billion with a B people on this planet that are doing some type of video gaming. And then you look at the economics of it. And last I saw it was almost $160 billion worth of action. And I personally am not an eSports person, but I am a legislator who looks at opportunities and wants to chase those numbers. And I really appreciate that you have a show like this, and I wasn't aware of it, that really is the catalyst to helping create the policy that can grow eSports. I mean, without discussions like this, it'll be one of those things that people will play in their homes as a hobby and will never actually be able to kind of grow it as a real segment of our economy. And that's kind of where I'd like to take this opportunity in the future. Sure. And Senator, as a eSports attorney in Hawaii, I'm passionate about bringing it to Hawaii because we don't have much going on right now, but it's growing and growing. What have you noticed about the growth of eSports in Hawaii lately? Well, to your point about where are we economically? I mean, we're in the doldrums, right? We're trying to, starting tomorrow, reinvigorate the economy by welcoming back tourists. And as we reframe, what is tourism going to look like in the future? Are we going to just go back to what it was before? And I want to look at different opportunities. Cultural enrichment, environmental management, and sports is another facet of growth of opportunity. I mean, we look at Aloha Stadium and all the things that are going to go on there. I would like to, later on in this conversation, have a discussion about what our plans are for eSports at Aloha Stadium. But it was really just the staggering numbers. And on a more provincial level, I represent the area from Kalihi all the way to Aloha Stadium. And one of the little high schools is in my district. And one of the high schools has one of the more prolific eSports teams in the state. I think last year or this past year, they battled with Roosevelt. And Roosevelt was ultimately the champion for eSports here in Hawaii. But it was also that spark of seeing young people in high school doing competitive eSports. And I'm working with HHS, that group, I can never remember the acronym, but the High School Athletic Association to try and see how we can have eSports as a legitimized competitive high school sport as well. So it was just the staggering numbers and seeing what Waterloo High School was doing in this space that really kind of piqued my interest in looking at the opportunities of eSports. So while you were talking, the screen froze a little bit. And that reminds me of one of the issues with eSports in Hawaii. And that is latency. What are your thoughts about Hawaii being able to have eSports and have competitive professional players and events in light of our position in the Central Pacific? Yeah, I'm sorry about that freeze rave there, but you're absolutely right. I mean, we can talk all we want about the opportunities in front of us. But unless we have the firm foundation, which is broadband capacity, our discussions are going to go nowhere. But I'm happy to say that we are at the cusp of bringing in more broadband capacity. There's a broadband director, I believe he's called Bert Lum. He's the he's office of broadband at DBET. And we're chasing some federal monies to allow for more broadband and fiber drops state owned on the four most populated islands in the state. So there's a real conservative effort to do the infrastructure upgrades that we need to get it get eSports going. And although we bring the cables here, we have to also worry about the terrestrial deployment of broadband. And you know, we only have really two competitors here, Hawaiian Telcom and Spectrum. And to be honest, I think they're a little slow and very expensive. So I would like to push them to provide it faster and cheaper or invite a third competitor to compel them to do something differently. But we have to improve the infrastructure and also improve the outcomes as well as lower the cost for our future of eSports domination. So is that in the works then to improve the infrastructure? Yep. So DBET and Bert Lum at the broadband office is actually chasing, I don't want to say the figure because it's confidential, but he's chasing some federal monies that would dramatically improve our capacity here if he gets that grant later this this month or next. Okay. And how long would it take to your knowledge to make those improvements so that we can improve our speed? Generally, the rule of thumb is for cable landing site. The permitting, if it goes well, is at least a two year process. That's in the best case scenario. To answer your question more honestly, I think it'll be at least after we get the grant, at least another three years before we actually start plugging and playing with broadband capacity increases. Okay. And so Senator, are you on particular committees in the legislature that look at these issues, including eSports? Yes. So unfortunately, we don't have an eSports committee. Maybe we will in the future. This turns into a dynamite area. But I sit on the technology committee and I chair the energy, economic development, and tourism committee in the state. So this is kind of in my wheelhouse. If we're going to have any discussions about eSports from an athletic standpoint, from an infrastructure standpoint, it will probably come through my committee. Okay. And have there been discussions in your committee on eSports? No. So all of my discussions about eSports have been directly with HHSAA, with the stadium authority, because I plans there, with the University of Hawaii sky over there. You might know PC gamers, Devin Woolery, I talked to them, but it's really, we haven't gotten to the point where we're really coming up with a policy and coming up with potential bills for eGaming. Okay. And yeah, and Sky will be on my show in two weeks. And we'll learn a lot more from him. But Senator, have so have any bills been introduced or have you drafted any bills that have a direct relation to eSports yet? Not yet. So like, for example, I was talking earlier about how I'd like to see competitive high school eSports in the future. And you really don't need to have a law to do that. Chris Chun over at that organization, he just needs money to pay for infrastructure, pay the coaches and that sort of stuff. So I'm chasing money with him or for him to get that rolling. So a lot of the eSports opportunities really don't need to take legislation. It's just a matter of, is there a will? Is there money behind it? And is there infrastructure that can support it? Do you know whether the Department of Education is committed to adding eSports in up to grade 12? Yep. So the DOE right now, as well as ILH, the private schools, they have competition on the club level. So DOE is fully embracing eSports. It's just a matter of how do we take it from a club level to an actual competitive high school level. That's the tricky part that we're going to have to solve the next year or two. Well, you know, when we're looking at tourism, one thing with eSports is the potential for having conventions and conferences and bringing tourists in for eSports activities, events, games, those kind of things. What are your thoughts on that? I think the potential is huge. In fact, I was working with Devin as well as Sky just about a month ago. We put in a bid for Hawaii for the Street Fighter Championships in February. We're competing with the Bahamas and I'm sorry, some other Caribbean island. But apparently the owners of, I can't remember the owners of this Street Fighter game, they want to do it on an island. So we put in a bid. But to your point, I look at eSports not purely from the entertainment value, but from the economic development angle and to your point, event planning, those are jobs that can be brought here that we don't embrace at the moment. And you look at just the technology behind eSports, the coding, everything from the technology that goes into a console, all of that are potential job creators here. And we know that we are one trick pony in this state. We have tourism and we also know that tourism doesn't pay the best wages. So if we're going to revisit tourism, how do we leverage the benefits of tourism to go and spawn off a diversified economy? And I just think that eSports has the opportunity to help us diversify our economy. And one diversification element I would think would be with software development, game development, marketing and advertising and other kind of ancillary areas of eSports, because eSports is not just the process of gaming. It also includes developing games and also even in the movie industry. I think we'll see more and more movies that do have a eSports theme. Yep. I mean, we can gamify everything. Wasn't there one movie where the audience could pick one of three outcomes of the movie? I can't remember what the movie was, but I think in the movies of the future are not going to be you and I sitting there watching the Titanic go down for two hours. We're going to have options like, oh, can the Titanic rise or maybe half the people pass away? Whatever, right? There's going to be an opportunity for us to interact with our traditional movies and video formats in the future. And I think that eSports certainly dovetails into the ever-changing movie entertainment environment. And we are situated in a very unique place in terms of one of the hotbeds of eSports, and that's Japan, South Korea, China. Do you think that having such a close relationship with Japan has some potential impact on what we can do in Hawaii? Yes, most certainly Japan. And let's not forget Korea. I think it's actually bigger in Korea than it is in Japan. And I'm looking at some of the gaming numbers, and I mentioned there's 2.7 billion people on the planet that participate in eGaming. And out of the 2.7, 1.5 billion are actually from Asia. The next biggest swath is Europe. And then it's Latin America. And then it's actually North America is the smallest, 7% of that figure. So if we're going to grow that 7% into a much larger number in the future, and we know that this arena is dominated by Asia, you're exactly right. We sit at the center point of where all the actions could and should be taking place. So that's another plus for us in terms of our location. Oftentimes in Hawaii, we talk about our location, the most isolated landmass on earth as a detriment. And I want to get past that and look at how is that to our positive benefit, right? We forget this idea of always we can cry baby and talking about the price of paradise. Let's look at profits in paradise. And we take that mindset, we figure out like where are, how is our strategic location to our advantage? And let's go chase those business opportunities. We have set a tradition in Hawaii for having big events, big sporting events. And those include the Great Aloha Run, the Honolulu Marathon, of course, has been going on for many years and attracts many, many visitors, including thousands from Japan. And we have Sony Open, we have golf events. We've also had the Pro Bowl here. Do you think that eSports can be among those very popular Hawaii events? Yes, most definitely. Hawaii has a pot of money. I think about $6 million a year. We have set aside for luring sporting events. So some of the events that you just mentioned, for example, golf, we spent about $2.2 million a year on golf. Last year, when the Dallas Cowboys and the LA Rams played here, we gave the Rams $2 million. The Clippers come here or used to come here for their preseason training. We pay them $600,000 a year. So there is a pot of money there to entice sporting events here. One thing that you did mention was the Honolulu Marathon. That, I love that particular event because as you mentioned, it draws in a lot of people, but they ask the state for absolutely nothing. There is no subsidy whatsoever for the Hawaii Honolulu Marathon. And if we go down the road of trying to get eSports tournaments here, I'd like to, of course, try to get them because of our illustrious background, great workforce, and wonderful broadband first rather than getting into this practice of having to put money out there for any kind of event coming here. But to your point, I think it has great potential to be called pleaser as well as economic driver. And another thing about eSports is that the people that participate in eSports and gaming, they don't have to be 6 foot 11. They don't have to weigh 300 pounds and be a linebacker or something. It can be women, men, boys, and girls of all ages and all ethnicities, all body types. So what are your thoughts on on that inclusion? Yeah, I think that's why you see the numbers and the participation that see it at 2.7 billion people who are enthusiastic about it. Because I mean, if you ever met me, I am no giant. I'm actually on the tinier side. There's no way I would be making a career off of playing sports. But as long as you got to 10 of these, 2 of these, and a brain in between your ears, anybody can be an eSports phenom. So you're absolutely right. And also age, right? In NFL, you're lucky if you have a 5 to 7 year career. That's a long time. But with eSports, I mean, whether you're a 14 year old kid, eSings functioning, you can still be prolific at eSports. So I think there's many pluses as to why eSports has the audience at it today. You know, and it's interesting because with the pandemic, we've seen a lot of an increased number of professional athletes who are investing in eSports. And we've had a significant amount of traditional sports that have gone the eSports route like NASCAR. And you can actually turn on the TV and watch an eSports competition where you'd have to watch it all on Twitch or YouTube or Facebook or something before. Do you feel that, where are your thoughts on that? I think that you look at how the traditional sports can really be played these days, right? Or if you're going to play a football game or soccer game, there's no audience there, just like at your home. So why not shift that game from a field into your home? I mean, you look at before eSports really took off, I used to play Madden, right? I can't play football as I mentioned earlier. And in this environment, you're not going to have the opportunity to go and even practice football like Kapiolani Park, but everybody can play Madden's football game on their console. So you're right, whether it's football, baseball, your traditional sports, I think, are going to see wiggling numbers. And even before COVID, you saw that attendance at baseball, basketball, and football games are slowly diminishing. And maybe that came at the price of more of an interest in eSports. So yes, I think the landscape of the entire sports entertainment environment is definitely shifting. And that shift does impact our state university's revenue in terms of ticket sales. And so doesn't it make more sense for UH to consider having eSports tournaments and including that as part of their athletics department? Yes, I agree. And Sky is leading the charge for the University of Hawaii. And considering he has almost no budget and is putting his motley crew together there, right? He doesn't recruit people, he doesn't give scholarships to student athletes at the University of Hawaii. But he has done very well. I mean, from what I understand, University of California Irvine is probably one of the premier eSports universities on the planet. And Hawaii can go toe-to-toe with them, kind of like Hawaii going toe-to-toe with Alabama on the football field. I mean, he's taking all the juggernauts and really being competitive at the University of Hawaii. So the opportunities are there. He needs more in terms of facilities. He needs more financial backing to really catapult himself into that upper echelon UC Irvine's of the eSports world. You know, way back when I was a young associate at the firm Davis Reed and Richards, I worked on the Aloha Stadium litigation case and learned all about how it was made of core 10 steel. And ever since then, the Aloha Stadium has held a place in my heart. And it will be a very interesting day when it is demolished and rebuilt. And tell us about your thoughts about the role of eSports in the Aloha Stadium. Okay, let me give you a quick timeline as to where we were and where we are today. Right now, we're in the RFP stage. We have six potential contractors. I think by the end of next month, the state will whittle that down to three and offer those three potential contractors an RFP. They will put on their best show. Tell us what they would like to do with the new stadium and by perhaps next summer, we'll pick a contractor to be the one to reinvent that entire area. And we hope that construction will begin by maybe this time next year. And by the end of 2023 or maybe the start of 2024, we're going to have a new stadium there. And considering that as we've been talking about, I'm a big fan of eSports. You really can't put eSports into an open-air arena. So I'm having a discussion with potential contractors that maybe adjacent to the football slash rugby slash soccer stadium, we'll have an eSports arena that is multi-purpose though. So if you can imagine, every NFL football team has an indoor practice facility. So if you can imagine 100-yard football field that's indoors, which will double in my hope is as an eSports arena. And we can do everything from eSports to weddings, birthdays, whatever. We've got to make sure that that facility is constantly being utilized. But so that's kind of the discussion that I've initiated with the contractors that are not the contractors, but with the contractor who is helping with the master planning of the future of a lot of stadium is to provide at least a thought that eSports might have a footprint on that property. And you know, there might be a silver lining in this delay of making these decisions regarding aloha stadium because even though eSports has been around since 1972 and even before in competition only in the last few years have people become more aware of it. I realize that there has been competitions, big competitions for big money for the past decade and more, but it seems that people are becoming more aware lately. And so if aloha stadium had been rebuilt without the thought of eSports, it seems to me that it's a bit of a disaster. So I'm happy to hear that you're thinking that eSports, you have design implications to bring eSports in. So I mean, the stadium itself is just going to be a small portion of the entire 100 acres at aloha stadium. We're going to have another, maybe the stadium will take about 16 or 20 acres. We can have another 80 acres for us to do all kinds of good cool mix use ideas. And so eSports is one of those cool ideas that we're putting forward. Well, Senator, I'm going to give you the last word and maybe tell us your vision for eSports in Hawaii. I think the potential is phenomenal here. But as with any kind of change in trajectory in Hawaii, it's going to take a lot of support. So I'm glad we have a forum like this to talk about it because it can't just be Catherine and Glenn talking about it and Tyler and Skye and a couple of others. I mean, the dozen of us have to turn into a hundred, have to turn to a thousand, have to turn into a lot of people. Because the things that we talked about, everything from competitive high school sports to actually build out of arena, all of that costs a lot of money. And all of that will only be achieved if the community rallies behind this entire push for embracing eSports. So I'm on board. You're on board. We just got to get more people to join us and see the full potential eSports has for the future of Hawaii. Thank you, Senator. I'm excited to have you on board. And thank you to our viewers for joining us today. Next week, my guest will be Alex Hutchie. We will talk about eSports marketing. See you then. Aloha.