Written by: The Nouns Esports Pod

TLDR: Nouns has established itself in tier one esports competition. Let's keep the momentum going! This is our opportunity at becoming a globally recognized legacy brand in esports.

Description

Our aim is for Nouns DAO to become a tier one, legacy esports brand. To achieve that, we need to consistently support our top-tier professional esports teams. This proposal ensures ongoing financial backing and assistance for our teams during the 2023 season, enabling us to continue cultivating an impactful esports brand and fostering strong community support around it.

Why Esports?

• Global Audience
  • 100,000+ regular viewers of the Nouns brand each month across multiple games
  • 250,000+ hours watched of esports competitions, player streams, etc. featuring Nouns branding
• Developing a community with passionate supporters and fans, providing a gateway to the broader Nouns ecosystem
• Empower aspiring esports athletes with our organization's support and representation to excel professionally

Esports Pod Update

• Operating since Proposal 119
• Effectively managed the budget allocated by the DAO more details at funds.nouns.gg
  • Protected against ETH downturn over the last 7 months by converting ETH @ ~1650 in August to provide stability to players and org
  • Currently maintaining a treasury of approximately $180k in USDC and ETH, with a significant portion already designated for approved proposals
  • Upheld only using a maximum of 10% for operations
    • We did one round of retrofunding for the past 7 months, with an average of ~$2900 total per contributor (distributed 60490 USDC among 21 contributors).
• Attracting a multitude of partnership opportunities
  • Esports native businesses who want to build with Nouns e.g. WePlay Proposal 198
  • Invited to a prestigious tournament circuit hosted by the world's leading esports company, featuring 16 elite teams, where each participating organization can earn up to $100K in incentives

Pod Success Stories

• Impressive performances and improvement from our teams & players
  • Multiple tournament wins and Top 8 finishes
  • Qualifying for some of the biggest events in the world
• Over the past six months, we have supported Aklo, the world's 16th ranked Super Smash Bros. Melee player. Our assistance has enabled him to participate in a greater number of tournaments across the nation, and he has served as a commendable and positive ambassador for Nouns
  • Check out the hype plays and skill from our Aklo announcement video
  • Witness when the crowd literally carries Aklo out of the venue after a big win in New York!

• We stepped in to sponsor a CS:GO team without financial backing, ensuring they could attend a crucial bootcamp ahead of one of their biggest events. Our support paid off when they competed in front of over 200,000 live viewers
• Influencer Taki has gained a significant following on social media, including over 100,000 followers on Instagram and regularly streams to over a thousand people on Twitch. Additionally, she has a substantial following on Twitter and TikTok. Taki has embraced Nouns culture and has organized tournaments and promoted inclusivity
• Pokémon Unite team finished second in the World Finals under the Nouns banner

In the Pod Pipeline

• Merchandise
  • Gaming jerseys in production. Instead of traditional sponsors (cough, betting) we are taking the sub communities of Nouns along with us to competitions
  • Nouns.gg can be used to redirect to various nounish websites during events. (e.g. prop.house or nounish.world)
  • Regular merch in production for fans

• Proof of Gamer (pog.nouns.gg)
  • A platform that merges esports highlight clips and governance
    • Built by collective, the team behind That's Gnarly
  • Revenue split between esports initiatives and the creator
  • Great for onboarding
• Continued support for our teams, players, and new initiatives

Teams

Dota 2

Why Dota?

Watch our recap video of the first 6 months of Nouns Dota.

• Dota is one of the most popular esports in the world, with a rich competitive history (20+ years)
  • 400,000 - 1,000,000 concurrent players at any given time
  • The International, the annual culmination of the Dota Pro Circuit, is the single largest prize pool tournament in the world (last year's purse was almost $19 million USD)
• We began supporting this roster with Proposal #68 and our team is currently ranked 14th in the world (top 3 NA!)
• In game branding (It has people talkin'!)

Placements

• Past results
  • 1st place BTS Pro Series Americas 11
  • 2nd place The International 2022: North America Qualifier
  • 3rd place DPC NA 2021/2022 Tour 3: Division I
  • 3rd place in DPC NA 2023 Tour 1: Division I
• Qualified For (Upcoming)
  • Dota Pro Circuit [qualifier for The International and Majors]
  • DreamLeague [$1 million tournament hosted in Europe]

Schedule of Events

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive

Why CS:GO?

Watch an interview with Coach Semphis prior to our first RMR experience with the team

• Regular opportunity for international competition
  • Our high mark for live viewership during the last season was at the IEM Road to Rio
    • Nouns vs Imperial peaked at 226,000 concurrent viewers
    • Unique viewers are typically 3-4x concurrent
• Currently rank 24th in the world!
• Opportunity for permanent branding inside of one of the most popular games
  • Teams that qualify for the major have the opportunity to create their own in-game sticker, which becomes a permanent part of the game and can be traded indefinitely. These stickers are applied as decorations to in-game items
  • The CSGO skins marketplace, dubbed as the "original NFT market", is now worth billions (with millions in daily volume)
  • CSGO Stickers would be similar to what we've already achieved in Dota. The below Team Sticker is already in the game from our participation in The International 2022

Placements

• Past results
  • 1st place Ace North American masters
  • 1st place Intel Extreme Masters Dallas: NA Qualifier
  • 1st place CCT NA Series #3
  • 1st place ESEA Cash Cup: NA Winter #2
  • 2nd place ESEA Cash Cup: Na Winter #1
  • 3rd place EPL Na Conference
  • 2nd place CCT NA Series #2
  • 2nd place ESL Challenger League Season 42 NA
  • 2nd place Fireleague 2022 NA
• Qualified For (Upcoming)
  • IEM Dallas 2023 [international event]
  • BlastTV Paris Major 2023: North American RMR [sticker potential]
  • CCT Finals [$200k purse and potential LAN]

Schedule of Events

Event Spotlights

Dota Pro Circuit The regular season format that is stepping stones to The International. The 2023 Summer Season will begin in May and culminates with a Major in Bali in late June.

DreamLeague Season 19 Our Dota team was invited to a 1 million dollar tournament as one of the 16 best teams in the world. This tournament circuit is ran by ESL, the biggest esports company in the world. Our success at this event will allow us to participate in a 15 million dollar grand final later this year.

Blast Paris Major 2023 North American RMR The Counter Strike sticker opportunity. Our team is in Monterrey Mexico, competing against top teams from the Americas for a spot at the Paris Major in May.

IEM Dallas Our CSGO team has qualified for IEM Dallas starting May 29th. IEM Dallas is an S-Tier event just barely below a Major. It will pit Nouns against the worlds best international teams, with hundreds of thousands of viewers. 2022's iteration (pictured below) had over 12.5 million hours watched and a crowd seating thousands.

Proposal Success Metrics & Vision

• Tournament wins and participation
  • Continuing to compete at some of the biggest tournaments in the world, such as Majors and The International
• Viewership
  • Due to the success of our teams we expect to be at significantly more tier one events than last year. Regular 10K to 100K+ viewership is expected
  • The highest view count so far was 200.000+ live viewers during a nail-biting series against MiBR at the CS:GO NA RMR
• Social media growth
  • Approaching 7000 followers on our main Twitter account & multiple of our players have over 50k followers
  • Discord server with 2400 members in total and a growing group of active contributors
• In-game branding
  • Dota will continue to have Nouns assets thanks to participation in the Pro Circuit
  • In CS, we need to qualify for an upcoming Major, doing so would guarantee permanent Nounish branding inside of the game
• Acquiring additional partners aligned to our Nounish ethos
  • We'll seek partners that share our values and vision for long-term growth, prioritizing alignment with our Nounish ethos
  • Nouns Esports can have multiple sponsors supporting our competitive initiative, and we will prioritize aligning with sponsors that share our values and vision for long-term growth
• Onboarding
  • Gamers have typically been wary of the crypto space due to a lack of understanding and perceived complexity. However, the similarities between the gaming and crypto ecosystems, such as digital ownership and online communities, make them well-suited for each other
  • Nounish culture extended into esports has proven to be an amazing onboarding tool and we believe we can bridge the gap between gaming and crypto, showing gamers the potential benefits of crypto and its applications in and beyond the gaming world

Risks and Challenges

As an organization, it's crucial to consider the potential risks associated with discontinuing support for our esports teams. These teams are not just a source of entertainment for the community but also a representation of our brand and values. If we abruptly stop supporting them, we risk losing the trust and loyalty of the community we have worked hard to build.

Another challenge that esports teams face is potential fluctuations in performance during the competitive season. To mitigate this risk, it's important to provide necessary support expected of tier one rosters, including management, coaching, bootcamps, and wellness support. This helps maintain the players' focus, discipline, and motivation, especially during challenging times.

Budget

Funding two professional esports teams for a minimum of 10 months.

Rosters

• 340,000 - 465,000 USDC
  • Two teams consisting of five players and one coach (12 people in total)
  • 125000 reserved for incentive payments, meaning it will be reflexive of the performance and effort put forth by the teams

Bootcamps

• 20,000-120,000 USDC
• Funding the best practice opportunities prior to important competitions
  • Considered an essential need for top esports rosters
  • Costs may be reduced depending on the number of sponsored bootcamps (e.g. our Dota team has already received a free bootcamp in Europe during April, paid for by the organizers)

Support Staff

• 210,000 USDC
  • We are providing industry-standard support staff for these rosters
    • Two player managers who travel to events with the teams & organize their lives around regular competition
    • Professional wellness staff
    • Support staff for logistics, social media & content

Total: 795,000 USDC (~435 ETH at current prices)

Multisig

We will be using the same multisig that was created for Proposal 119 consisting of Nouners and Nounsfolk. We will be swapping in Esports Pod member Peter as an active signer.

• Sasquatch
• Brennen
• Maty
• Oni
• Peter (Former Dota Pro, winner of The International, and previously CEO of Evil Geniuses)

Esports, Introduced

We have recently created a fun & free open edition to celebrate Nouns Esports, which has been minted over 10,000 times (with a limit of 1 per wallet)!

• We have re-opened the mint for the duration of this proposal, you can find it at mint.nouns.gg

Conclusion (ChatGPT TLDR)

Thank you for reading!