The international consulting company Odgers Berndtson, specializing in the search and recruiting of managers for various companies, has conducted a study of e-sports clubs in the USA, Oceania, Europe and the CIS. The experts found out which team management structure is the most common in the world of esports, and also named the approximate salaries of leading specialists in this field. Cybersport.ru publishes excerpts from the study.
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The survey participants from Odgers Berndtson were eSports clubs, which, according to the company, are in the top 25 of the world rating. As analysts later explained to Cybersport.ru, the top was compiled by the amount of prize money won. This suggests that the study concerns most of the top clubs from key disciplines: Team Secret, Team Liquid, Virtus.pro, etc.
During the study, analysts found that the vast majority of teams use a similar model of work: in such organizations, all key business functions (operational, financial, HR, sales) are performed by various departments within the club, which have their own leaders, and they, in turn, obey the CEO. This format was chosen by 81% of the surveyed clubs. Odgers Berndtson noted that this format is close to the corporate world.
In 19% of other teams, all key functions are distributed between two leaders – the CEO and the COO (chief operating officer). In some cases, such clubs outsource sales and marketing to third-party agencies. The study found that 57% of the team’s athletic performance is the responsibility of the sporting director, but the other 43% – in almost half of the cases – falls directly on the key executives, i.e. the CEO or COO. Analysts point out that the second format has proven to be so common because many executives have direct experience of esports competitions.
Experts also calculated the average salary of eSports club executives. The study notes that the range turned out to be very wide due to the difference in living standards in the regions under consideration. In addition, to provide a more objective picture, the experts removed 10% of the maximum and minimum values.
At the same time, analysts noted that in a number of clubs only a part of these amounts is a fixed salary. About 40% of organizations use an incentive system, which implies the payment of bonuses for meeting KPIs and achieving long-term goals. In the case of top management, such goals can be an increase in the number of subscribers on social networks, an increase in viewership on broadcasts of teams’ matches (or an increase in views on team channels on YouTube), and attracting new partners.
Athletic directors (or CEOs in those clubs where the top management is responsible for the result) receive bonuses for victories or high places in tournaments. This distinguishes esports from traditional sports, since the club’s victories there in most cases guarantee additional payments to the entire top management team, analysts noted.
As a result of the study, representatives of Odgers Berndtson noted that media and commercial departments have become indispensable attributes of modern e-sports clubs, and this suggests that e-sports has now become a full-fledged part of the entertainment market. At the same time, organizations are still compact structures and do not seek to inflate the staff beyond measure: only 21% of the surveyed teams have more than 50 employees. This is contrary to the tradition of the sports world – in football, even scouting departments can include more people.
Odgers Berndtson pointed out that the key challenge for 75% of esports clubs today is to balance costs and revenues. For many, this issue is acute and requires finding solutions as soon as possible. One of the measures aimed at finding balance was to increase the share of prize money received by teams. Finally, the study participants noted that in recent years the structure of contracts with players in eSports has changed: they have become longer, and they began to include KPIs for sports results.
