2023 In Review

Hi Reader,

With the doors closing on 2023 we took a look back at the Milestones, Successes and Challenges which Nativz faced across 2023. Last year's attempt to share these highlights with you in a snappy format seemed to go down well so we've done it again - you'll find links included to any deeper reads.

🚨 Just before you take a look through... we're delighted to share with you that Nativz Gaming has now been accepted into Enterprise Ireland's High Potential Start Up programme. We'll share more on this news with you as we work through the process. 🚨

TOP 5 MILESTONES

Launch video for the Ireland Esports Collegiate Series which generated over 11K views on X/Twitter.

1️⃣ John 'Rnglol' Crichton Signed - secured as Head Coach with impressive global experience. In this time we've successfully positioned ourselves as a desirable team for experienced players and future talent.

2️⃣ NLC Summer Division 1 Summer Champions - strong statement of intent, improved ability to sign talent and secured qualification into the EMEA Masters giving us Europe wide brand exposure.

3️⃣ Full-time CEO - having someone now leading the business in a full-time capacity for the past three months has turbocharged our progress.

4️⃣ Ireland Esports Collegiate Series Rebrand - created more value for local sponsors, enhanced the identity (of the series) and introduced a commercial moat around the product.

5️⃣ Winter Series In-Person Final - the first but important step to getting events up and running which will lead to the introduction of much needed ticketing revenue and more sponsor value.

SUCCESS

Our Nativz League of Legends first team being named champions of the NLC.

🚀 League of Legends pro team entered NLC 1st Division for the first time, crowned Summer Split Champions, finished 9th= in the EMEA Masters

🚀 Ireland Esports Collegiate Series 3 Year Strategy launched, rebranded from Nativz Collegiate in September, launched first ever in-person Winter Finals in December @ Dogpatch Labs, Dublin

🚀 Announced the signing of 14 talented individuals to our new Nativz Creator Team! They were live Monday to Friday covering the Ireland Esports Collegiate Series from October through to December

🚀 Piloted our very first co-stream for our Aurora Cup Quarter Final against JLingz, yes that's Jessie Lingard's team. Secured ex-Misfits Content Creator ProxyFox as host which went down well

🚀 Partnerships have developed in line with our progress. Launched with Oxen as Official Kit Partner in March then Monster Energy, Dogpatch Labs, GG Machines and Rí-Rá Brewing Co. joined in December

🚀 Social media audience reach grew 67%, record audience of 123K for our LoL First Team, this meme hit 306K views, two TikTok videos generated +200K views each, +10K LinkedIn views of my announcement going full-time, our Summer Split Roster announcement video generating 35K views

🚀 John ‘Rnglol’ Crichton (LoL Head Coach) and Ryan Fleming (Production) joined Management Team alongside incumbents Ronan Monaghan (Operations), Yannick Gloster (Technology) and Sammy Davies (Social & Content) plus Hannivai as Community Discord Lead

🚀 Advisory Board additions included Hesus Inoma and Jeff Donnelley to an already enviable team of senior leaders supporting our future development

🚀 Released Annual Irish Student Esports Research review. Did you know 71.4% engaged in physical activities on three or more days per week? It's just one of the perceptions we challenged with this insight.

🚀 Welcomed Fergal Murray as our latest Angel Investor, synonymous with Ireland’s brewing industry after 31 years as Guinness' Master Brewer. He even poured the perfect pint for the Queen back in May 2011! 👑 

🚀 Launching a new annual Collegiate Challenge which Technological University Dublin (TUD) went on ti win and were crowned as the top esports University/College on the island of Ireland for 2022/23 🚀

🚀 South East Technological University (SETU) qualified for the Collegiate Rocket League (CRL) World Championships straight out of our very own Collegiate Series.

CHALLENGES

Our LOL First Team Mid Laner Vladi facing technical issues outside of our control in our top-of-the-table match against Verdant.

🎮 The consolidation in esports impacted on the Tournament Organisers. Felt the impact first hand as Promod (Valorant Beacon Series TO) went into administration. Freaks4U recently handed their license to run the NLC over to Leagues.GG.

🎮 Competition integrity in the NLC was challenged with a technical issue we faced not of our own making. Freaks confirmed we could appeal to Riot Games, Riot Games told us they don’t overturn or overrule decisions the Tournament Organiser makes - yes we were as confused as you are.

🎮 Freaks4U's decided to downgrade the NLC from an accredited to non-accredited league plus seek an exit from their 3 year deal. Our reaction was to retain our place but significantly reduce team costs (against the trend) for the 2023 Spring Split. While that saw us prop up the bottom of the table we then doubled down to boost the roster for Summer Split which paid off handsomely.

🎮 Aurora Cup was introduced to mimic the FA Cup, bringing all levels of the NLC together in a knockout competition. While the value isn't there to fund a First Team we used it for development purposes.

🎮 We chose to sunset our League of Legends Talent Team and our Valorant Team. This allowed us to shift our talent development resources to focus squarely on the Ireland Esports Collegiate Series.

🎮 Encountered slight delay getting the Ireland Esports Collegiate Series brand revealed, Winter Registrations went live later than expected as a result. We made a correction for Spring registrations!

🎮 Mainstream media recognition, inaccurate perceptions and a lack of knowledge of the Irish esports ecosystem have been challenging. These hindered our conversations with non-endemic brands. Our work on thought leadership and closer relationships with reputable organisations gave us more strength!

🎮 Our 2nd Annual Ireland Esports Industry Thought Leadership event was postponed due to a clash of events at the venue. Timing didn't allow us to reschedule before the Christmas rush kicked.

🎮 New 2022 Nativz Player Shirt launch went well, email open rate of 57% and unique click throughs to the product of 25%. Demand was created but the online store conversion wasn't. It's uncovered a core problem which has hindered our retail revenue growth.

🎮 Technical challenges with BigFan not getting our Membership programme up and running was frustrating. Fortunately the team at CrowdClass stepped in to keep us moving while we evaluated our own technology profile.

🎮 Time. This past year moved extremely quickly. Fortunately our team is developing, alignment on the vision is there which has become more evident as we've bought more people into the organisation.

METRICS

Our games against the French esports team Karmine Corp were amongst the most viewed at EMEA Masters, with the peak reaching 123,442 concurrent viewers.

📊 67% increase in social audience on official channels (from 4655 in 2022) ⬆️

📊 58% increase in social reach across official channels, players and staff (92K in 2022) ⬆️

📊 5,783 unique web visitors (6,822 in '22) ⬇️

📊 34.92% user engagement up on 2022 ⬆️

📊 1,684 opted in marketing database (1,351 at end 2022) ⬆️

📊 38% overall email open rate, 6.6% click through rate (36.3% and 3.6% respectively in 2022) ⬆️

📊 107 teams in 2023/24 Ireland Collegiate Winter Series only (92 in full 22/23 academic year) ⬆️

📊 919 opted in Ireland Collegiate current and past players 🆕

📊 35% open rate / 3.1% click through rate, Ireland Collegiate weekly email newsletter 🆕 

PEEK INTO 2024

It's an exciting year ahead!

👀 Further work building our 'Pathway to Pro' pipeline for Ireland Collegiate talent. We're not just talking about players, its also about coaches and the many admin roles required in esports.

👀 Drive for further investment to accelerate our growth through our upcoming pre-seed round.

👀 The launch of our technology solution that will address these four problems - esports build for esports, community lack tools, sports club access unclear and dependance on sponsorship.

👀 Expect to see more in-person events following on the success and positive feedback we received from our Ireland Collegiate Winter Finals.

👀 Purpose is important to us, it's a theme we're going to double down on in 2024 to underpin this next stage of growth and leverage our brand reach and growing physical footprint.

Thank you for your support in 2023, now let's go and get 2024 together.

Regards,

Kurt & the Nativz Team