The bright and shining symbol of esports of our country India nowadays – Global Esports – is keeping expanding bigger and bigger, proving to the world that the Indian know how to do esports. But what few people actually know is that this esports organization started out as just a pet project, but two founders of Global Esports have decided to re-direct the company’s business focus, which resulted to the Global Esports we know nowadays. Let’s hear the story from the two founders - Rushindra Sinha and Mohit Israney – themselves to know how they managed to achieve this success.
Today, Global Esports is the company that totally devotes into working in the esports industry. The company is having 77 employees, with about 45-50 of them are pro esports players. The operation of the company expands to three countries, not just inside India. So it might be hard for people to believe that this company actually started with the first intention of a pet project.
The actual first venture in the esports industry of Global Esports was to host a pub stomp during The International 2017 esports event. Both Rushindra Sinha and Mohit Israney has skeptical thoughts about this venture at first, but the result of this pub stomp was so great that it changed the mindset of both founders of the company. This positive result showed that the esports community in India actually cared about gaming and esports a lot, they just did not have a place or an opportunity.
From this event, Rushindra Sinha and Mohit Israney agreed to change the whole business focus of the company to esports, and they managed to get themselves a huge investment contract with Venture Catalysts – the first and biggest Integrated Incubator in India. This investment deal’s value is millions dollar, thus allowing Rushindra Sinha and Mohit Israney to do things that used to exist in their dreams only.
The first thing to do with all the esports organizations in the world is to pick up an esports team in a game. To everyone’s surprise at that moment, Global Esports’ first team was an Indian Overwatch team. This game quickly rose to be one of the most famous game when it was launched in 2016 in North America market, but then it was nothing in comparison with the two most famous game in India: CS:GO and Dota 2. Overwatch’s price is really high for the average income of the Indian, and this game also requires high specs PC to run, so the development of this game in India is severely prevented.
However, Rushindra Sinha and Mohit Israney at that moment thought that they could only manage to organize a small community, so they gathered an Indian Overwatch team, paying for their traveling and lodging fees so that this team can take part in many local LAN Overwatch tournaments. In a very short time, this team rose to become the best Overwatch team in India and started taking part in the Overwatch tournaments in the South East Asia region.
It did not take long for an Overwatch team in Singapore to contact Global Esports to offer themselves, in return for financial help from the Indian company. With two successful Overwatch teams, the reputation of the Indian company within the Overwatch community in Asia has risen dramatically, which resulted into an opportunity for Global Esports in South Korea, a place where Overwatch is super popular.
With so many opportunities in the esports industry, in August 2018, Rushindra Sinha and Mohit Israney decided to give up the other jobs they were working to fully dedicate to Global Esports. The two founders agreed with each other that to turn the company into something serious in the esports scene, they had to consider it their only job.
South Korea is the birthplace of esports. This country had had esports for classic titles like Starcraft decades before other western country knew about this term. And the opportunity to work with a Korean Overwatch squad taught Rushindra Sinha and Mohit Israney a lot of valuable experience.
After having finished the setup work for the Overwatch team of the company in Korea, Rushindra Sinha and Mohit Israney returned to India in November 2018 to fully dedicate to the business of Global Esports. And just after nine months, besides three Overwatch team in South Korea, Singapore, and India, this esports organization have created Indian pro teams in CS:GO, PUBG and Dota 2. And they are heading to the bright future.
But to become a long-living company, the sustainable source of income has to be the priority. At the moment, the revenue of Global esports mainly comes from winning money of tournaments (up to 70%), and we all can agree that this is not a good way to run any kind of esports organization for a long time. And the main goal of Rushindra Sinha and Mohit Israney for now is to reduce the proportion of prize money in the total income down to about 20%. To do this, the company will push up to income from the content and media.
But that is not everything Global Esports wants to do in the future. Besides upgrading the content quality, as well as getting more sponsorships, Rushindra Sinha and Mohit Israney want to expand the market of their company. India will still be the home ground of this esports organization, no doubt about that, but the corporation can reach to North America and Europe market in the future.
Yes, Global Esports is not a big name in the industry, for now. But with this ambitious vision and practical way to execute, we can surely hope that this company will be a brightly shining symbol of India in the near future.