What the Cameras Don't Show
The following is a guest post from Grant Paranjape, Vice President of Esports for Washington Justice. The views expressed here are Grant's personal thoughts and are not endorsed by any organization
Hey everyone, Grant here, and I am excited to be joining you for my first blog post. This is a series that has really morphed from an idea born out of wanting to share more of our behind the scenes photos, into an awesome way for individuals here at the Justice to speak directly to you, the fans. So for my blog post, I’d like to do just that and share a little bit of how the team here is approaching 2021, some insight into running an Overwatch League franchise, and hopefully answer some of the most frequently asked questions from you all this year.
The Off Season
This off season has been one of the most turbulent that I can remember for any competitive esports league. To that end, I wanted to share a few things that I think are helpful to keep in mind as a fan, when you seeing teams make certain roster moves, that might not at first glance, appear to make the most sense:
There is little insight into salaries, buyouts, player desires, team goals, and overall off-season movements. While it’s not a guarantee, having a player’s association would likely open a path to more of that information being shared publicly, similar to how the NBA operates.
Adding to this imbalance of information, the majority of teams this year will have run tryouts, both open and closed. Tryouts offer teams a look into how players have been progressing throughout a long off season, as well as how they perform after being removed from their previous team’s environment.
The best teams are able to build cohesive rosters, with great chemistry. To date, there actually is not a specific correlation between one additional dollar spent, translating to one additional win within the Overwatch League.
How other teams choose to spend, impacts the entire ecosystem for an offseason. If you have several teams willing to spend, overall salaries and buyouts go up. If you have other teams choosing to pursue more budget conscious routes, it can result in lower overall salaries and buyouts.
With localization and a few seasons now under our belts, we’ve found team environment and location are two factors that have started playing a larger role in negotiations with players, outside of just pure compensation.
Overwatch 2 is a nagging thought for me when approaching this offseason. Not knowing how it will impact player performance, when it will release, how disruptive it will be to the entire esports ecosystem, all can play into how teams decide to approach the 2021 season. For some, it may cause them to increase their spend now and try and lock up top talent that they anticipate will perform well on Overwatch 2, for others it may make sense to conserve capital and plan to deploy that once there are more details out about Overwatch 2
Further complicating matters this offseason are:
Challenges with immigration / franchise location due to COVID.
Potential challenges around future fundraising, as capital markets are inherently linked to the overall health of the economy and investors’ risk tolerance.
Reductions in sponsorship revenue (as those partners are affected by COVID), or inability to scale / generate new partnership opportunities.
Lack of live events / sponsorable assets
With the above in mind, ask yourself- can you achieve your dream roster for an Overwatch League team? Perhaps the better question even is, should you chase building a super team or is there a better approach, knowing what you know now.
I thought it would also be particularly interesting to show how even if you went a full budget route (7 players on $50k salaries) how quickly that number escalates when it’s fully loaded (healthcare, payroll tax, housing, food etc.)
A $50k salary player for our organization will actually run ~$80k fully loaded (calculation dependent on housing costs / payroll taxes / health insurance). Assuming a roster of 7 players (league minimum) that is already $560,000 on players, before any buyouts are paid, before any higher salaries are negotiated, and before you have any expectations of pushing for a championship. Now ask yourself, are you prepared to spend $1.5M, $2M, $3M in pursuit of a championship, knowing that money in sports, or esports for that matter, does not guarantee, or necessarily correlate directly to wins?
Justice in 2021
So where does that leave us. Does going full budget make sense? Should we be opening the checkbook to chase a championship? Or is there a path in the middle that makes sense? I believe there is. I believe you can spend slightly more than potentially an average team, you can over index on players who are coachable, who perform well during tryouts, players who want to be a part of your organization and grow into a role over multiple season, players who with the right meta can pop off, and ultimately come together to compete for a championship.
And for our 2021 roster, we’re doing just that. We’ve built a roster that we believe has the ability to come together and truly become a team. We are being responsible with our spend and will secure players that enable us to recognize success this season, but also provide building blocks for future seasons. We will build a cohesive team that has the ability to outperform initial expectations, particularly with the coaching staff we have surrounding them. To respond to a few common questions:
No, we did not spend our entire budget on Decay & Mag, resulting in us not having any money left for other top tier players. Again, we might not be shelling out millions in buyouts, but we are being responsible in how we deploy the remaining dollars and are confident in the player selections we’re making. Both Decay and Mag also chose to come to our organization and are interested in being apart of the culture we’re building here.
Yes, we ran one of the most extensive tryout processes for any Overwatch League team and were one of the earliest teams to do so this year. I’m immensely proud of our staff for being so on top and ahead of the game on doing this, and I believe it’s netted us wins from both a competitive and cost perspective.
No, we are not showing favoritism / being biased to the players we’re picking up. Supreme and our entire coaching staff are objectively providing recommendations regarding player signings, and they are doing so with the perspective of trying to build the best team possible, given the resources they have.
The Future
This is the longest form of content I’ve ever written, so if you’ve made it this far, thank you for sticking with me. To Justice fans, all I can end with is this is likely the best iteration of our competitive roster we’ve ever had entering a season. We have truly all-star players, a core foundation for our front office & coaching staff, and a setup in D.C. that we feel will provide our players the best shot at success for the 2021 season. We’ve also built a supporting business operations staff that while small, is mighty, in what it can accomplish- supported by two cornerstone partners in PenFed & Events DC.
I know the off season can be an incredibly stressful time for everyone, particularly when you’re a fan of certain players or a specific team. To that end, just know that there are so many talented and hard working individuals who are spending every day trying to balance all of the higher level perspectives that you might not think about when your favorite player gets replaced or traded away, with the objective of building a franchise that you as fans can be proud to call yours for many years to come.
Thank you all for reading and I’m hoping to have time to do more of these in the future. Stay tuned for some exciting announcements over the next few days and I hope that you will come with us on the journey that 2021 promises to be.
#JusticeFighting
Grant Paranjape
Vice President of Esports
Washington Justice