INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Emerging from the smoldering wreckage of Echo Fox and Vision Venture Partners, the investor Stratton Sclavos is rising again to launch a
new esports-related venture — a gaming-focused digital network also backed by the WME talent agency and Daylight Holdings.
Tapping
Daylight and WME roster of talent, Sclavos has createdPlayers Ntwrk, a new gaming-focused production company that will look to compete with
other upstarts angling to tap into esports and competitive gaming newly dominant place in the entertainment firmament.
Players Ntwrk will
feature original programming, unscripted series, celebrity gameplay and live events tapping talent from music, traditional pro-sports and
the esports gaming world.
Sclavos and the multifaceted talent manager and president of Daylight Holdings, Ben Curtis, dreamed up Players
Ntwrk as a way to tie together disparate groups of athletes and entertainers around their shared love of gaming and entertainment
The network will initially leverage relationships with WME and Klutch Sports Group, the agency founded by LeBron James& longtime manager,
Rich Paul, to find talent for programming.
The network will launch on Tuesday at 5:00 pm Pacific for two hours of gameplay featuring the New
Orleans Pelicans Guard/Forward Josh Hart and Sacramento Kings point guard De&Aaron Fox on the Players Ntwrk Twitch channel
Additional live streams will be broadcast Friday and Saturday, the company said.
Over the next 12 weeks the network will add live
programming featuring all of its &First Squad& talent and experimenting with different gaming and unscripted formats
Ultimately, the network will produce between 12 and 15 hours of original programming per week by the end of the second quarter and will ramp
up to 20 to 24 hours of programming per-week by the end of the year.
Initial programming is going to be devoted to charity fundraising, with
proceeds going to designated charities based on direct audience donations, the company said.
Players Ntwrk First Squad talent roster
includes:
Professional athletes: De&Aaron Fox (Sacramento Kings), Josh Hart (New Orleans Pelicans), Jarvis Landry (Cleveland Browns) and
Alvin Kamara (New Orleans Saints)
Music and Entertainment: PARTYNEXTDOOR, Murda Beatz, producer Boi-1da, actor/former athlete Donovan Carter
(Ballers)
Creators/Streamers: KatGunn, Sodapoppin, Cash, Jesser, Jericho, Octane, Sigils, Sonii and DenkOps
Players Ntwrk joins companies
like Venn, which are angling to gain a slice of the roughly 37.5 million monthly viewers that are expected to watch live streams on Twitch
by the end of 2020,according to research done by eMarketer.
&The number of viewers Subscribers consuming gaming entertainment across YouTube
and Twitch tops other entertainment services such as Netflix, HBO, Spotify and ESPN combined,& said Sclavos, in a statement
&Entertainment spectacle is trumping hardcore gaming competition
That kind of engagement makes it clear; gaming entertainment is the next pop culture phenomena
PLAYERS NTWRK is the only platform embracing and executing this new reality by creating original content with the most influential people
who also happen to be fans themselves.&
