January 24, 2023 • 45 mins
Esports competitions have seen a boom in popularity in recent years with some of the highest paid players making up to six figures. Celebrities like Drake and Post Malone have even invested in the sport. Host Roy Wood Jr. sits down with Daily Show correspondent, Michael Kosta, and LA Thieves Call of Duty player, Sam “Octane” Larew, to break down the similarities and differences between traditional and electronic sports and how professional gaming is making its way into the mainstream.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
Welcome to Beyond the Scenes, the Daily Show podcast that
goes a little deeper into segments and topics that originally
aired on the show, Like look, this is how you
gotta think about this podcast. If The Daily Show is
a salad, then we're the toppings that make you want
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sees of salad dressing or French orp ble samic vinaguarretta,
(00:26):
or whatever the hell you prefer. We all know that
honey must just the champion. We got it for you.
We're diving into the world of e sports today, based
on a segment from Daily Show correspondent Michael Costa. This
segment took a deeper dive into the growing professional gaming
industry roll my clip. Competitive video gaming known as e
sports is booming. There's even a training center with five
(00:48):
training rooms and six locker rooms. The Olympics are considering
addie sports. I went to California to a so called
training center in someone's garage to talk with these eats
about why video games isn't a sport. What the hell
is this? This was the alien Ware training facility for
(01:10):
e sports Team Liquid, complete with scrimmage stations, a war room,
pr department, a team coach, and even an in house chef.
The team star, whose name is Taco, was acquired from
Brazil's top team. This is our real sport. You call
yourself an athlete? Yes, of course, the compete, we go
to tournaments, we travel a lot, We've got some money.
(01:33):
What is an East sport athlete? Mr? Taco do every day?
Just practice? Yeah? I have a former professional tennis player.
That's what I would call like a real sport. There
was an opponent and you would relish the opportunity to
defeat them with your racket. What do you actually have
to show for what you're doing? And come on, I
(01:55):
have a real strong finger finger. Yes, this finger our
kids at least one million people. That fingers killed one
million people at least. He'll break this down a little
bit more for us. I am joined by my fellow
Daily Show correspondent and Michi Gander. Michiander Ger, Michigander was ready.
(02:17):
Trust your instincts you have, okay, yeah, Michigander, And I'm
gonna learn from you what you learned about making this segment? Costa.
How you doing, I'm good man, Thanks for having me
and it feels odd to even be called in on
this piece because I was such a skeptic going in
and uh, now, like, how professional? So you got the sport?
(02:39):
I mean I never you know, I grew up with sports.
Not whats this e? Why is there? Why is there
a vowel in front of it? Now? So but I
was really impressed and turned the corner, so to speak.
But obviously your other guests can really talk about the sports. Yeah,
and that other guests is a call of duty player
for the L A. D. S Am octaying, LaRue, Sam,
(03:02):
how are you doing? That's going on? Guys? I'm glad
that we are. Glad we converge you. Michael, I like that.
That's that's got I know you were skeptic before him,
is he? That's just it's good one at a time.
I liked that. Yeah, I was a reluctant convert even
want you in the first place? Okay? Yeah, I was
reluctant and you won me over. So that's that's a
testament to how fun this can be. I like that.
(03:24):
Are you a video game guy at all? Or or
not not at all? Nothing? Ever, since the controller had
more than the A and B button, Oh lord, are
you serious that even a Siga genesis. I mean I
remember walking to you and Ronnie's office and you guys
would be playing whatever, and I was just like, this
looks cool. But I oh yeah, us, oh yeah, okay,
(03:50):
I like to see where we're starting here. Well, and
I don't want to jump ahead. But when I said
about the piece, and I guess this is how I
got converted. I like watching anybody try to compete and
perform under pressure, and once you realize that the sports,
that's all, that's what it is. That's fun. That's fun
(04:12):
for me. That's how I am about most things. If
I know someone's going to be disappointed in crying at
the confrontation, it's usually mark up at two. I can
even watch Chopped Kids. Sam, let's start with that e
in front of the sports, you know, describe that world
to us and tell us how long you've been a
professional game? Oh man, we're summarizing the sports. Okay. Uh.
(04:35):
Competitive video gaming is something that is well used to
be extremely taboo. I'm happy, you know. Michael is a
perfect example here that it's a little bit more mainstream
than it used to be for sure. Um, But like
I said, it was, it was taboo years ago, and um,
the older generation of just most people in general. Whenever
you say that you play video games for a living,
or you know, whenever I get into an uber and
they're asked where I'm going, what I'm doing, um, and
(04:57):
I tell them that, the usual reaction is all, my
my kid plays video games or oh, how do you
do that? And it's a very um, misunderstood topic, I
could say. So I'm happy to see the progrection that
it's made over the last couple of years because video
games has, ah well at least used to have a
pretty stigma around it, you know, people being lazy. It
wasn't a productive thing to do with your time, and
then you blind it ruins your television exactly. You couldn't
(05:21):
you couldn't make a living off of it. It was
just a huge time sync and I'm happy that, Um,
the the outlook on on the sports and video games
in general, like I said, has changed over the last
couple of years. Um, But it's just competing at the
highest level and whatever chosen video game you would like
mine happens to be called duty. But there's countless out there.
The way you've tried to explain it to people that
it's really not that different than going to a video
(05:42):
game arcade back in the day and you and five
or six different guys would all try to get the
high score on whatever the hill, pac Man, Gallagher, whatever.
You're just doing that online. The only scope of knowledge
that I had of e sports growing up was Madden.
You know. I went to college at a place where
(06:02):
people would play Madden for money in the dorm, in
the you know, in the TV or whatever. And then
eventually at some point ESPN had like a Madden League
that used to come on at like four in the
afternoons on ESPN five or some ship, and I was like, oh, yeah,
that makes sense because I've seen people do that here.
But then once it got into like the bigger world
(06:24):
of like all of these role playing games and the
first person shooters, I'm like, wellow, where is the money
coming from with that? Like, how does the money flow
from that? Because this is being broadcast on Twitch and
the internet, and I'm assuming it's no different than a
broadcast network where you turn you advertised all of the eyeballs,
right exactly. It's very it's very similar to traditionally sports
(06:46):
in at least my neck of the Woods. Um, I
play in a franchise league, so similar to an NFL
or an MLB. It's a city based franchise league. I
obviously played for the Los Angeles teams. So, uh, there
are ways to compare to additionally sports to help people
kind of figure out how to navigate the waters. But
it's definitely a little tricky because, like you said, people
don't know where the money is coming from, and you
(07:07):
hear these absurd figures like, um, and there's a game
called DODA and they're like basically they're Super Bowl. Uh,
it was a forty million dollar tournament. So people are
very reluctant and very confused when they hear the numbers
being thrown around. Like I said, it's because it was
so taboo years ago. Um, the transition of like trying
to understand the landscape is a little bit challenging for
(07:28):
people at times. For sure, it's a little forty million
dollars a little different than maddening your dorm. For sure.
I don't know that they was fighting in them do
The competition is probably about the same. How do you
how do you get into this? Because this is one
of them careers that now like do you feel like
Kasta like at this point, like why did the teacher
tell me about this ship when I was in the
(07:51):
third grade? Out of stuck with that stake of Genesis?
How do you get into this world? Like how do
you even make a team? Like are you so good
at Call of Duty as an individual that you get
a call? Is it like the matrix to someone knocked
at your door and say, followed the white Rabbit? Like
how do you get pulled deeper and deeper into this
(08:12):
world and then see it as a viable career path?
So I think I'm very confident. I could say that,
like people start out as a casual video game player
because they're doing it, whether it be for fun or
it's just a game that they enjoy. In general, I
think there are very very few cases where people actually
just start playing and want to play competitively immediately. Um.
(08:32):
In my case, I just loved playing Call of Duty
and love to playing video games my entire life. Um.
I've been playing since I could hold a controller essentially. UM,
and I kind of tripped and fell into a career.
To be honest with you, I was playing recreationally, like
I said, UM, and I had met some friends online
that introduced me to the world of competitive call Do
you don't even know what existed when I was playing.
I was kind of just in my own little bubble, uh,
(08:54):
wasting time essentially, uh in high school. And my friend
at the time, like I said that I an online. Um,
he wanted to travel to this event, and it was
so strange to me. And you know, I was like sixteen,
and UM, I don't even know if I was good.
But you know, when I'm sixteen years old, traveling across
the country to play at a video game event just
sounds like a great idea. So naturally I did it.
I begged my parents and I don't know why they
(09:16):
let me do it, but they did, so shout out
to them, UM, and I kind of just tripped and
fell in love with it. It was it was completely accidental,
and I think that's, um, honestly the best case scenario
because it's you know, my my livelihood today Roy and
the piece, I interviewed Rick Fox, former Lakers champion. What
the hell is he doing there? Well, exactly, so this
(09:38):
is I'm sure no disrespect to Rick Fox. I wanted
to beat my ass well, and I remember when we
were pre producing the piece. I think one of my
questions was, can we get excuse me, Sam, I'm gonna
speak frankly. I said, can we get a real athlete
that maybe has got into E sports? Because I don't
want to sit with an ethlete, want to sit with
(10:00):
someone that like whatever, whatever, whatever the tournament. But man,
there was something really powerful about a guy wearing his
Lakers World Championship ring. It's easier to it's easier to
connect with it. It's easier for me to connect with
first certainly, what are you doing with these nerds? Man?
You're a real athlete and so are they. What the
(10:21):
ship are you talking about? Me and you? We played
real sports. You know you can see our balls in
our pants when we played it. Are error? I think
there was no shame around pursuing a career in professional
sports because you can get a scholarship to college, which,
by the way, you can get as any sport player.
Now there's a number of colleges that are building the
sports arenas on their campuses. This is all great, but
(10:44):
let's get down to brass tacks here. How much do
these athletes make probably the best top laner in the
world in one of our games he makes probably eight
on a what And he talked about how I think
he has a son, or maybe he was talking about
one of his players. I don't know, but their parents
were like stopped playing video games, you know, go outside,
(11:06):
go outside and play. And then one of his athletes
had just signed like a three million dollar contract. And
it is very funny because my mom, I mean, we
played Super Mario, we played you know, my mom, get outside,
you know you'll, I'll give you an hour of video
game time if you go outside all things, you know,
And it's really like, my mom, you really blew my
financial opportunities, and I blow my mom to this day.
(11:28):
Your mom's the reason you're not a professionally sports player.
Home right, Okay, so constant, it's staying in that lane.
What were some of the other like similarities and differences
between like traditional sports and E sports? Are they getting
time outs? Are they getting water breaks between every round? Like?
Do you have a cornerman? Yeah? We went to Team
(11:50):
Liquids training facility in Santa Monica and when I walked in, okay,
quickly about me, I played minor league professional tennis that
it aided much of my life to tennis. Never got
to the highest level in tennis that I wanted to.
But I walked into Team Liquids training facility and I said,
this is a tennis academy. I mean there was a
(12:10):
chef who cooked us lunch. There was a training facility.
There was a breakdown room where you would where you'd
break down video watch footage. They had mental coaches maybe
the wrong word on staff. They had lots and lots
of people whose job it was to facilitate and make
sure the athletes were ready to compete. And as soon
(12:34):
as I walked in the door, I just had this
feeling of like, oh shoot, I gotta go put my
tennis shoes on and go practice. It just felt like that.
So there was a lot of similarities. So Sam, in
that world, I would assume that diet in sleep help
your mental acuity, which makes you quicker and and well
and more analytical. Um, what is the typical training day? Like, Like,
(12:57):
I'm not gonna say you don't need to be physically fit.
I feel like you do. It helps. I've been on
both sides of the spectrum of physically fit and not
physically fit. Well competing it definitely helps. How does that
text your body so it's it's much more mental. It.
Don't get me wrong, you were I'm not gonna sit
here and pretend that we go through the physical strain
that and I'm not gonna I'm not gonna agree with Naturally,
(13:19):
I would love to do a side by side cholesterol
or blood pressure test of an athlete versus we could
run a forty right now, We'll see how it goes. No,
but still sitting in a chair, because I've noticed them
game and chip costume. You ever said one of them
game and chairs? They are they are kind of ugly,
but so comfortable. They're not They're not actually prefer the
(13:40):
office said anyway. Uh So, I guess it's all it's
it's essentially all mental. Um. Obviously, being in better physical
shape is just better for your life in general, and
that impacts all aspects of your life, not just video games. UM.
But to Michael's point, how he mentioned the infrastructure behind
team likes facilities and all that, that's that's pretty much
(14:01):
the standard throughout the majority of UH Tier one E sports.
That's when you talk about League of Legends or or
DOT or counter Strike, call Duty, um, all of these things.
That is the standard we have a chef as well.
We have mental performance coaches. We have all these things,
and I think that that's another thing that people really
uh can gravitate towards an understanding because when you know,
(14:22):
you watch these videos like behind the scenes of I
don't know the charters, uh facilities, You'll you'll see like
their locker room, You'll see where they watch their uh
their game film or vote for for us. UM, You'll
see where the chef prepares their meals. It's it's a
it's a one to one comparison. So I think that
that's another thing that can help bring people uh towards
the sports and in easier light. UM. And to to
(14:43):
your point, Roy, Uh, it's it's all mental. It's it's
ninety five to five, I would say in terms of
of mental and UM that's arguably worse because you can
become your own worst enemy pretty quickly because uh, it's
it's very performance based and obviou so you know, traditional
sports are as well, but you can get hurt and
you can go out for the season and that's not
(15:04):
really I mean, it's not your fault. That's just an
unfortunate circumstance, whereas in e sports it's entirely on your performance,
and there's really bar like an extreme circumstance. There's no excuse.
It's you either played well or you played poorly. And
there's no not like the defense sucked but I did
my job. It's not like it's not like I got
through for four yards and three touchdowns with my defense
let up forty points. It's like I went out and
(15:25):
I either help my team women or I help my
team lose. So there are very strong, uh, very mental
health for sure. Are you guys drug tested? Is not
a joke? I mean, if it's that mentally straining. Yeah,
there's all types of legal and illegal focused drugs, and
I know there's stories in the NFL of there being
(15:46):
bags of greenies that guys pop in there, you know
before halftime. That keeps some focused, keeps some energizing. And
fetamines for real? Is that? Yeah? Tell me, please talk
to um. That was something that came with the CDL one.
We started franchising a couple of years ago. Before that,
it was kind of the wild wild West and you
could do what you want and it was like a
(16:06):
tough It was just there was enough money for it.
Because drug testing. I don't even I don't even know this.
It's extremely expensive to do so. Uh. Once the CDL
hit and there was like a large influx of money, no,
millions and millions of dollars. Uh, the league's drug policy
and just the franchising in general really cracked down. Um.
And now there's it ties for everything under the sun.
And when you say cdo we're talking about the call
of the league. Okay, now what do you old drug
(16:29):
tested for? What are the prohibited substances? Everything? No, we
I mean the big ones, cocaine, heroine. I'm sure crack
is frowned, none of it. Um, you could have a
legal prescription for adderall. Yeah, so there's things called t EAST.
I think it's therapeutic use exemption is the acronym UM.
(16:49):
And there are people in the league. I have friends
of mine that can vouch for this as well. When
you have a d h D, it is very hard
to actually just function as a person without uh, you know,
adderall or whatever you're on, because you need to come
back to zero. It's it's not come back to a
hunter or whatever it may be. It's not like you're
taking it to be better. It's taking it to be
like a neutral. Um. So there are cases like that
which I had, Like I said, I have very close
friends that are like that as well. Um, So there
(17:11):
are times that you have to go to a doctor,
you have to go through the process to be like, look,
are you trying to do this because you need it
or are you trying to do this to get a
competitive edge? So you see, the Hell does a phenomenal
job on making sure that that line is correct and
there's no one pushing the boundary now to that point.
After the break, I want to talk exactly about that
a little deeper, because I want to talk about the
mental health implications of what you're what you've already kind
(17:32):
of alluded to putting pressure on yourself and knowing it's
your fault that you sub today and how do you
unpack that and if you need to address that pharmaceutically,
what does the league do to help? And just I
just want to talk about the mental health implications of
what's your job because it seems stressful. In any job
that's stressful, there is definitely appeal that could help you
(17:55):
with it, and I want to talk about that a
little bit more after the break. This is beyond the scenes.
We'll be right back Sam. You know we left talking
about your practice schedule and everything that goes into preparing.
First off, like a hours, how long are you doing this?
Like if football? Yeah, if football is like nine to
six with two of days and breaking the afternoon from massage.
(18:18):
You want a full schedule breakdown, not a full schedule breakwup,
but just from sun up to sundown? How long are
you holding a video game controller? Between ten to thirteen hours?
Ship you crazy? A day? Yeah? How many days a week?
Six days? At is that? And that's that's a mean thing.
(18:42):
That's not a that's not the standard. There are there's
plus and minds obviously, um, but if you want to win,
you gotta put the hours and because if you're not
gonna do it with in someone else. Well, so I've
been around the block. I've been playing for you know,
eight years at this point, nine years. Uh, so I
understand what it takes to win, and I've won a lot.
So it's uh it's a lot of a lot of
trial and area throughout my career to to to find
(19:02):
the spot where I know that I'm putting in the
work required to win. And right now it's about that time.
Are you playing Call of Duty or are you working
on a specific exercise to improve a specific part of
your game. Um. So you guys asked me if if
it's control or held the entire time, and it's not,
it's probably it's it's it's probably eight hours of playing.
(19:23):
And then the rest is either vouter review on the day, UM,
talking with coaches or my team to figure out, you know,
plans or strategies for the scrims, or talking in general
about practice and improvement. UM, whether that be game planning
for matches that are upcoming, or if we're traveling, talking
about our schedule and Brackett and all that kind of stuff. So, UM, yeah,
I mean for the actual the schedule throughout the day,
we practice from eleven am to give or take six pm. Um.
(19:47):
Those are two scrim blocks per day with a break
in the middle scrimmage scrimmages. Yes, other teams UM had
two of those a day with a break in the
middle obviously for you know, lunch, and we'll talk about
the game play and if we're we're doing things properly,
if we're addressing the issues that we want to talk
about for that day. Um. And then afterwards when you
get home. I'll usually stream on Twitch and then that's
(20:10):
kind of the the extra time. I mean, I'll stream
for four to five hours per night, and I'm also
playing cord during that time as well, so it's the
the overtime essentially that kind of pushes those hours. Do
you ever have fun? Do you ever just go today? No,
it's really fun. It's you know, the it's a cliche,
but if you like your job, you know you're not
gonna work a day any because you voice just now
(20:32):
that was a work well, you know, you've got to
train in the study the team strategies, and yeah, it's
I mean it's video games, man. It at the end
of the day, it is my job and it is
how I make a living. But it is video games
at the same time, so I have a ton of
fun doing it. It's competing, obviously, competition is great. If
you're losing all the time, competition is probably not that great. Uh,
But yeah, I mean, it's it's video games, man. It
(20:53):
cannot be fun. This This is what I appreciate traditional
sports and that you cannot play that many hours, you know,
you even in tennis, even at our even at our
even at our most high training of two a days
in college where it was two and a half in
the morning too in the afternoon, I mean the last
(21:14):
the second half of that second workout is basically feel horrible. Well,
it's just it's it's counterproductive. You're just you know, you're
out of Yeah, you're out of your out of energy.
So chalk went up for the traditional sport that I
didn't have to play tennis twelve hours and then go
home and which I serve. So you know what I mean, Man,
That's that's where the boundary of the physical and the
mental comes into sure, because it's mental burnout, whereas in
(21:36):
physical or trad sports obviously physical burnout. Okay, so then
let's talk about the mental burnout of that. Have you
ever been impacted by that? Like, have you ever felt
that level of just I'm spent, Yes, definitely. Half. So
when I was young, I went pro at eighteen years old,
I was playing obviously long before then. I was just
(21:57):
excited to be playing the game I met. Health wasn't
something that I was really focused on because I've never
had impacted me essentially um and up until I would say,
like two years ago, it was the first time where
I had really noticed the decline. UM, and I didn't
really take the proper steps beforehand. And I didn't have
like the warning signs of myself to have the self
awareness to stop that from happening. UM So I was
(22:19):
on a different team a couple of years ago, going
through a pretty rough stint in terms of like placings
and just team performance overall, and uh, it got pretty dark.
I was contemplating like retirement. UM. I didn't know where
my career was going to take me. I didn't know
if I was even capable of playing anymore. UM So
that's the self doubt had definitely crept in. And like
I said, since I didn't really have any prior experience
(22:41):
with dealing with mental health issues, it kind of all
hit me like a truck. Uh. And it was it
was definitely something that I had to navigate being an adult,
um and trying to figure out how to just get
out of that headspace. UM. That's where Michael, when you
mentioned that the team look with things like the mental
performance coaches come in. UM, we had one that was
phenomenal with a hunt thieves or a thieves are Um.
(23:02):
So the team understands that and they've made space for
that within their facilities. Foot roll to have that the
same as a shift, the same as a USUS. So
we have and that's new, like that's college. You know,
that's new. And one thing and Sam, please talk more
about this. It's always hard as an athlete to know
am I mentally ill? Or do I just keep losing?
(23:25):
And losing sucks? You know what I mean, like like
it hurts to lose it. You take it personally. You
work so hard and you're losing. It's like a slump
is different than like I'm depressed, but there are some
crossover So how did you Definitely, I mean it's nuts,
It's uh. I think the only way to really differentiate
(23:45):
between two is how much work that you're putting in.
I mean, if you are doing the bare minimum and
you're slotting by and you're losing, then you can really
self prorecting, like, look, I'm not doing what I could
be doing right now. Someone should have my job. That
isn't me um. Whereas on the opposite of the spectrum,
if you're putting you in ten to twelve of ours day,
if you're watching, if you're doing it everything you possibly
can get better, and you're still losing. You need to
have the mental acuity be like, look, I'm doing everything
(24:07):
I can. I'm putting one into what I'm doing right now. UM,
So that that's the thing that you can take away.
Maybe your team isn't great, Maybe then you can look
outside and not pass blame, but you can understand it.
You are doing whatever you possibly can in that situation. Um.
And that was something I had to learn because when
I was doing poorly, UM, I really didn't understand that.
(24:27):
So I wasn't doing everything that I could have been
doing at the time. And once I started, and I
started to feel a lot better because it's like, look,
even if the results aren't there, I know that I'm
putting my best foot forward. So, UM, there's definitely crossover,
like you mentioned, it's just having to navigate that crossover
is very very hard to do. Can you go on
injured reserve? For my mind ain't right? Like, how does
(24:49):
it when you're talking about this as a team based
sport and you can be replaced by somebody. I don't
know how you j V squad or your minor league
or how do you get called up from the G league?
Goes in that in that world, But somebody replaces you
and they do better than you, you ain't getting your
job that so that is very true. What is the
pressure of choosing to endure mental health struggles instead of
(25:11):
just literally taking a breaking unplugging from everything. So up
until a couple of years ago, it was very taboo
to do that. That's I mean, mental health in general
wasn't really looked upon until a couple of years ago
as a serious topic and call of duty held that
that same sentiment. UM, Well, there have been cases where
people have said, look, I'm burned, I can't do this
(25:31):
right now. UM, I'm not in the head space to compete.
I am just a burden to my team. Essentially. That
has happened um over the last couple of seasons in
multiple different cases. Uh. And to answer your question, there
are substitutes on rosters that will step in for UM
that player, whether it be like, hey, I just need
a week, I need X amount of time doesn't matter. Um.
And again to your point, if they start performing very well,
(25:54):
it feels pretty rough. UM. But nine times out of ten,
the player will either be traded the next season, UM,
if that is something that ends up happening, UM, or
the players come back out right and be like, look,
I feel a lot better. I'm in a much better
mental state than I was prior. Um, but yeah, mental.
So it's like quarterbacks and football. Basically, if you lose
your job to the backup, you still have worse. Exactly,
(26:16):
You're you're you're gonna have name value. You're going to
be like, look, this guy was playing extremely well prior
to his break, and maybe his break made him feel
ten times better. Um, so you still have name value
when when that case happens, that also has happened to
your point where the substitute will step in and perform. Well, um,
that's kind of how new new players entered the league
in general. Um, but this is this is pro sports.
(26:38):
I mean, the stakes are high and there's real money.
It's so it's not like a participation trophy for everyone.
So it's like, you know, I mean, it sucks, it sucks,
but if someone steps in and does better than you,
you gotta really think if you're gonna pop off. Yeah, yeah,
I see one of Sam's mental health strategies just ran
into the room. That's it. Because everybody who competes or
(27:03):
performs at a high level needs something that loves it unconditional.
That's right, okay, dog trying to get those likes. Look,
I can bomb all day, I can bomb all day
at a comedy club, but as soon as I come home,
this little idiot licks me and tells me I'm funny.
(27:24):
That's all I need. Oh here, the door open. Here,
the door open. But yes, it's your point. He definitely helps.
Have you ever fired a real gun? Uh? No, I
have not, which is strange because I am from somewhere
that uh loves hunting in the dirty South. So yeah, no,
I'm not Sam across all the leaks. Now, you play
(27:45):
at an optimum level in your craft at some of
the lower level leagues. Um, have you seen an increase
in the level of support that the sports leagues are
providing to the players with regards to mental health? Like,
I understand the care that you got, So it would
be like the league in the NBA, for example. Yeah, yeah,
double a baseball and things like that. Uh yeah, I
(28:06):
think it's just with a rising tide lifts all ships
kind of situation. Um, Once the league franchise and we've
got that huge influx of money like I mentioned beforehand, Um,
it kind of helped everyone. I know that there was
a large UM structure put in place for we call
it challengers. That's like the that's our our thing, UM.
So you're talking about the Challenger League. There is a
(28:27):
lot more structure than there used to be. I mentioned
the Wild Wild West a little go It was very
much like that, UM. But now there's there's a lot
of different organizations. There are a professional teams that have
Academy rosters or Challengers rosters UM that are delectate directly
linked to uh, the CDL teams. There are separate entities
in their own that just that's British Premier League Soccer
(28:49):
ship where we draft you at fourteen and you're part
of our organizations. Actually that is exactly correct. Wow, I
understand when I watched the NFL how they make money?
How are these where? How are they making money? Like
why would they invest? It's not broadcast yet, there's there's
a little bit of broadcast, but like, how are where
(29:11):
is the money coming in for esport? Is it the
sale of the game. So there's a couple of different
avenues UM. The main one obviously is advertising and selling sponsorships.
Is as you do in general UM. For the individual
such as myself. There are you know, brand deals. I
have an agent similar to how an NFL would do it. UM.
You know I can't go on a commercial with say
farm and Patrick Mahomes, but I can do UM. So
(29:32):
one also you know something for like Herman Miller or
just you know brands in general that would want to
work with you. UM. They're streaming on Twitch. There's a
lot of revenue there. You can do YouTube. So it's
just content as an individual. On the individual level is
probably the number one, as well as your salary, which
I'll get into. On the league level, it's a lot
of brands, it's a lot of selling partnerships. UM. And
on the organizational level, that's where you have the tie
(29:54):
to UH. Basically in Stanley rich people UM that like
to do east or have an interest in it. So
I just played for the Seattle Search UH their partner
with the Canucks. We I currently played for the l
A Thieves, which is a branch of one hundred Thieves. UM.
They are one of like a the Triple A uh
E sports organization. They had a Series A investment when
(30:16):
they first started their company, invested by Drake. You said,
like Rick Fox and Echo Fox. There are multiple different
cases over the sports where people just have an interest
and happen to have a lot of money, and uh so,
I mean it's it's never a bad thing. Um. You know,
I'm I'm salaried and it provides my living and there's
a huge structure you have in case it's it's a
(30:36):
lot of different things. But with that celebrity involvement that
has not made it mainstream or uncool in any way.
I think it's I think it's the exact opposite. I
think that funnily enough to Drake's involved. There you go, um,
so to talk about the celebrity thing just for a second. Um,
(30:56):
I think the pandemic really moved video games into the spotlight.
I think beforehand it was pretty taboo and it was
nerdy to to just put it blatantly, um if you
played video games. And I think the pandemic with everyone
being inside, kind of tied everyone together, like, look, I
can't go out, I don't have anything to do. Let's
all hop on a war zone and hang out. So, um,
(31:17):
I think it brought celebrities into the limelight. You look
at like Kyler Murray, he just has memes around him
that he plays Call of Duty on his his Microsoft
Edge when he's when he's on the field. You know Drake,
like I said, as a series of investor of Huntering Thieves, Um,
there's there's a bunch of post Malone is even like exactly.
He loves Apex and was on complexity. So I've met
a lot of these guys. I've met celebrities strictly because
(31:38):
I played video games and these are things that I
never would have been able to do otherwise. And it's
kind of cool because it's an icebreaker. You can go
up and you can talk shipped to them and you
can do it humanizes them because when you see these
people and you see Drake, he's like, dude, why would
I ever put myself in the same room as this guy.
I wouldn't even know what to say. But it gives
you the opportunity to be able to speak freely and
not be as nervous. Um. And obviously that's just an
(31:59):
extremely privileged standpoint because I can talk to these people.
But because that's always my thing, I just want to
make sure that I think it's cooler if they're legitimate
fans and have some level of emotional investment in what's
happening versus this just being I've put some money on
this and I am here to check on my like
like almost earnest in the way that like Ryan Reynolds
(32:19):
and Rob mclaney bought that soccer team over in England.
But they're legit there and running the like they are
invested in care versus just somebody. Yeah, this is my
liquor line. What the fund do you know about liquor? Yeah? Tequila,
my my tequila. Did you go down there and check
on your tequila plants? Bitch? Did you? You probably get
(32:41):
after the break? Costa, I want to talk to you
about your experience going to one of these tournaments, what
it was like. We need to talk about the salary. Sam.
I don't want to pocket watch you, but I want
to just we'll give us the median. We don't need
your number, but give us the median. And uh, I
want to talk a little bit about women representation within
(33:03):
your sport as well. This is beyond the scenes. We'll
be right back beyond the scenes. We're round and third
and headed for home talking E sports. Now, Michael Costa,
you went to one of these E sport events. Now
I'll give you my scope of knowledge. We have The
Wiz with Fred Savage where he went to play um
(33:26):
Super Mario three before it came out. The whole movie
was basically commercial from three it got my ass. And
then I also have The Last Starfighter where a dude
was so good at a video game that an alien
from space came down and said, can you help free
our press people with your video game skills? That's my
(33:50):
spectrum of knowledge of being good at video games and
being invited to do it at a pinnacle that's a
cult hit. Bro, those are some references. Let me tell
you those are some Tier one. I'm forty four years old.
I'm old. So when when you step into the Barclays Costa,
like just the array of people, They're like, what's the
(34:13):
demo for this? Is it? Yeah? That's a good question. Well,
you know, my my previous knowledge of this was that
documentary The King of Kong. You ever saw that about
the competitive donkey Kong? And I remember putting that maybe
in the DVD player thing, what is this trash? Why
(34:35):
did my brother make you watch this? And immediately A
suckered into because it's it's about competition. It's about watching
people compete. And at their highest level. So I love that.
So Barkley Center, I definitely felt fish out of water.
I definitely felt like I was the tallest person there. Uh,
there was twenty there was twenty thousand people there. I
(34:58):
immediately was envious and jealous of the fandom, of the passion,
of the enthusiasm, of the energy. You know, tennis, you
clap like this. I maybe had two people at my matches.
I was watching Team Liquid compete in counter Strike, and
all the fans, audience members, you know, whatever you call,
(35:20):
They're wearing these bracelets. And when one team would place
the bomb on the the other team, you know, and
I'm I'm gonna butchers the sport. But when one bomb
gets placed, a clock starts ticking down, and every time
a second goes off, everyone in the stadiums bracelet pulses,
(35:43):
twenty pulsing bracelets. So then as the bomb gets closer
and closer to going off, these bracelets start glowing to
add to the terrifying notion that this bomb is gonna
explode soon. I'm like, stand, it's so cool, Roy, I'm
standing there like there's twenty thousand bracelets going brighter red,
(36:05):
brighter red, and the other teams trying to like defend
or find the bomb or whatever. The it was like, oh,
ship the sports you guys tied in the fans in
the game. That was a badass move. And that was
when I was sold. Now, I didn't I don't play,
and I didn't buy the jersey, but I immediately I
(36:27):
immediately got it and gave it some props because it
was it was a fun environment. Sam, are people bedding
on this ship? Because this is wait, I'm sorry, what
on DraftKings? I can just go on a gambling app
and just get Yeah, give me forty do on Sam
to school to get kills some parlazy do everyone. Wow,
(36:51):
that's a level of knowledge that I do not possess
about this. So if it's people, you're streaming the exact
same thing I'm I'm I'm sitting here preaching it's the
same thing. So if it's being live stream there's revenue
coming from that, and eventually that has to trickle back
to the players at a at a high level. Pocket
watching roy its pocket watching time at a high level.
(37:15):
Could I make six figures doing this for a living? Yeah? Absolutely.
Um So when you're a member of the studio, whether
that be substitute or on the starting roster. Your minimum
salary is fifty. You cannot make under fifty if you
are a contracted CDO professional. How long is the season? Uh,
the season is nine months, school years exactly. Got your
(37:38):
time off. So you make your side hustles on twitch
and do at the streams, you get your celebrity stuff. Okay,
the high end, you're making high six figures, high sixes,
mid mid to mid to high sixes. On the extreme cases,
like the highest played player in the league makes high
six figures. Um, I'm in the middle. I'm not gonna
(37:59):
say where, So just some people who aren't good with
their figures. Six figures is a hundred thousand dollars, so
you're saying mid too high. You can make half a million,
can make half a million to about five thousand is
like the majority of the leader probably. That's awesome. So
when you when you look at the research, you know,
(38:20):
with all of these different teams, at least the research
on the outside, there seems to be a lack of
representation of women in East sports. Have you seen that
number slowly growing over the span of your career. Talk
about where representation is for women when you started, versus
where you see it going today, because I would imagine
there isn't a need for a women's like we're not
(38:41):
even get into muscle mass and size different. It's your
thumb movie, Can you move up? Too? So it's funny
you asked, because I think the was it was either
yesterday the day before. Um, there was the first woman
to qualify for the Challengers Elite, which is basically like
their tournament that is in the Challenger League. Um, that
(39:03):
was the first time in forever. Uh and that was
like two days ago, I think. Um, so definitely, there's
there's more women representation every year. It's building, and I
think that that's just across the sports as well. I
don't even think that's specific to call duty. You know,
Valerie has women's leagues. They have full blown I don't
know what they call it and Valerie, but they have
like Academy rosters, they have a full blown league strictly
for women. So I think that as as the year
(39:26):
goes on, or as the years go on, excuse me,
I can't help but agree that that as time goes on,
there's just more and more women representation, which is incredible
to see UM specific to call duty. I think we're
lagging behind just a tad because it's not really something
that I think women really gravitate towards. I think Valerie
is probably leading the space right now in terms of
just e sports as a whole, because I was watching
(39:46):
that the other day and no joke, and it was
legitimately impressive. Because I'm horrific and Valerie, I can't. I
can't play on keypboard mouths at all to save my
life in any aspect. Thank god I have a controller
to to make my living on UM. But yeah, I
think women and are are definitely trablazers in the space
right now. For sure, is there in terms of the
fight for the because I don't want to. I want
(40:07):
to be very careful about not rolling the sports community
into the gaming community as a whole. Right I feel
like there are two different things. You have professional gaming,
which where there might be some degree of gender discrimination,
and you're saying that there are leagues and that there
are efforts being that there are efforts to make things
more equitable for women. But on the gaming side, we're
(40:30):
just talking to regular Joe blow game or in the basement,
women are subjected to all types of harassment and trolling
and bullying and docking. How much can the e sports
community do to try to speak out against that. It's
kind of like the racism and soccer. Soccer is not racist,
but there's a lot of the fans that you're talking
(40:51):
crazy in them stands. So has the sports community been
able to do anything, I guess, to speak out about
that or try to stop and curtail that. I think
that transcends the sports screen. I think that becomes just
like a humanity thing and trying to be a good
person in general. Um, But to your point, absolutely, I
think just trying to be as positive as you can
about the space, and I think that gaming definitely has
(41:12):
that stigma attached. Michael. Since you're such a filthy casual,
I'm sure that you could you probably agree that. You know,
there there are people that when you talk about video games,
they're just people that are assholes, and I think that's
in all walks of life. Unfortunately. I think that you're
absolutely right, Roy, Um. You know, the sexism and stuff
like that, it definitely is not great for the space,
not even just the sports, but video games and life
(41:33):
in general. That's something that we need to be a
lot more progressive one. Um. You know, I do my
best to spare as much positivity in my stream as
I can, and I'm I'm very welcoming to to anyone,
but um, you're you're definitely not wrong there. And I
think that when you have women transcending in the sports
and become I mean, you know, like I said with
the Valerie thing or or her name is Kelsey in
in Call of Duty, Um, when you have these women
(41:54):
making headway into space, I think that sets an example
because you know, these women could kick your ass in
the video game that talking about. So I think that
is something that um, you know, hopefully down the line
and in a couple of years or hopefully sooner, um
progression is made. But I mean that's just a humanity
thing in general, just trying to be a good person.
I don't think that's necessarily a new sports thing. There's
(42:15):
something beautiful as we get more women playing um competitive
e sports in particular Call of Duty. There's something beautiful
about men and women trying to kill each other in
the video. I mean, like that is right now it's
mostly men trying to kill each other, but it's adds
such a beautiful complexity when it's both genders both working
(42:37):
together and also working against each other. And that was
your takeaway from this whole seg that a film casual? No,
but I mean you talked about it a little bit
at the top, Coster, but you know as a casual
coming into this and having covered it, how did it
change your view of just you know, even just the
(43:01):
idea that video games make people crazy, like like in
theory right, like they go, oh, video games make people violate.
But then you have that's such a yeah, I know,
it's such as take I know you have an arena
full of people watching violence and people doing Violet. Aren't
they all fighting? Well? You know, I I just was
(43:26):
reminded and humbled that what I think is one way
is what I think. But it's so important to step
out of your comfort zone because I would be the
dad that would say, get off the video games, go outside,
dos go outside. But then you walk into the Barklay
Center and tickets were sold, and I just say, this
(43:50):
is another healthy outlet. I know that what you know,
they're they're doing a violent game or whatever. But it
was it was really fun to see the team. There
was a team aspect, there was a coach, they were
learning lessons. There was people that were disappointed, there's people
that have achieved that day. It was preparing them for
all facets of life. That's cool. So just to interjectually quickly,
(44:15):
that was your first and only experience with the sports
correct counter Strike tournament. You probably picked the best thing
that you could have possibly done to have your to
to do your for your first time. Yeah, well that's
probably why we picked it too. Counterstrike fandom, uh is
kind of one on its own. I think it's a
league above the rest. Uh, not to make the joke,
but League of Legends is also very good. Uh. Counter
Strike has such passion behind it, um, and it transcends
(44:39):
the game as well. It goes to nationality. European counter Strike, Um,
you know a team like it was Brazilian counter Strike.
There are it's like we could compare to soccer. I mean,
there's legitimate fandom when it comes to nationalities within counter strike,
and that's why it's so incredible. Like when North America
does well, people are losing their minds. Um. You know,
years and years ago Cloud nine was doing incredible. They
want a major with Shroud. It's so um counter striker is.
(45:03):
I think the extreme example of fandom and e sports
and legal legends is also incredible as well well. Sam,
I can't thank you enough for coming on Costa. Thank
you as well for contributing to this wonderful, wonderful conversation.
Hope we converted Costa while we were here, Roy, I
hope we did. Yeah. Yeah, let's baby steps, Let's put
them on a Super Nintendo. Let's go to six buttons.
(45:25):
He's not ready for left L two R two. He's
not like the keyboard and mouse yet. That's all the
time we have for today, but hopefully by now we're
taking you beyond the scenes to see you next week.
Listen to the Daily Show Beyond the Scenes on Apple podcast,
(45:48):
the I Heart Radio Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Welcome to Beyond the Scenes, the Daily Show podcast that
goes a little deeper into segments and topics that originally
aired on the show, Like look, this is how you
gotta think about this podcast. If The Daily Show is
a salad, then we're the toppings that make you want
to eat that salad. The crutons, the grilled chicken, the
sees of salad dressing or French orp ble samic vinaguarretta,
(00:26):
or whatever the hell you prefer. We all know that
honey must just the champion. We got it for you.
We're diving into the world of e sports today, based
on a segment from Daily Show correspondent Michael Costa. This
segment took a deeper dive into the growing professional gaming
industry roll my clip. Competitive video gaming known as e
sports is booming. There's even a training center with five
(00:48):
training rooms and six locker rooms. The Olympics are considering
addie sports. I went to California to a so called
training center in someone's garage to talk with these eats
about why video games isn't a sport. What the hell
is this? This was the alien Ware training facility for
(01:10):
e sports Team Liquid, complete with scrimmage stations, a war room,
pr department, a team coach, and even an in house chef.
The team star, whose name is Taco, was acquired from
Brazil's top team. This is our real sport. You call
yourself an athlete? Yes, of course, the compete, we go
to tournaments, we travel a lot, We've got some money.
(01:33):
What is an East sport athlete? Mr? Taco do every day?
Just practice? Yeah? I have a former professional tennis player.
That's what I would call like a real sport. There
was an opponent and you would relish the opportunity to
defeat them with your racket. What do you actually have
to show for what you're doing? And come on, I
(01:55):
have a real strong finger finger. Yes, this finger our
kids at least one million people. That fingers killed one
million people at least. He'll break this down a little
bit more for us. I am joined by my fellow
Daily Show correspondent and Michi Gander. Michiander Ger, Michigander was ready.
(02:17):
Trust your instincts you have, okay, yeah, Michigander, And I'm
gonna learn from you what you learned about making this segment? Costa.
How you doing, I'm good man, Thanks for having me
and it feels odd to even be called in on
this piece because I was such a skeptic going in
and uh, now, like, how professional? So you got the sport?
(02:39):
I mean I never you know, I grew up with sports.
Not whats this e? Why is there? Why is there
a vowel in front of it? Now? So but I
was really impressed and turned the corner, so to speak.
But obviously your other guests can really talk about the sports. Yeah,
and that other guests is a call of duty player
for the L A. D. S Am octaying, LaRue, Sam,
(03:02):
how are you doing? That's going on? Guys? I'm glad
that we are. Glad we converge you. Michael, I like that.
That's that's got I know you were skeptic before him,
is he? That's just it's good one at a time.
I liked that. Yeah, I was a reluctant convert even
want you in the first place? Okay? Yeah, I was
reluctant and you won me over. So that's that's a
testament to how fun this can be. I like that.
(03:24):
Are you a video game guy at all? Or or
not not at all? Nothing? Ever, since the controller had
more than the A and B button, Oh lord, are
you serious that even a Siga genesis. I mean I
remember walking to you and Ronnie's office and you guys
would be playing whatever, and I was just like, this
looks cool. But I oh yeah, us, oh yeah, okay,
(03:50):
I like to see where we're starting here. Well, and
I don't want to jump ahead. But when I said
about the piece, and I guess this is how I
got converted. I like watching anybody try to compete and
perform under pressure, and once you realize that the sports,
that's all, that's what it is. That's fun. That's fun
(04:12):
for me. That's how I am about most things. If
I know someone's going to be disappointed in crying at
the confrontation, it's usually mark up at two. I can
even watch Chopped Kids. Sam, let's start with that e
in front of the sports, you know, describe that world
to us and tell us how long you've been a
professional game? Oh man, we're summarizing the sports. Okay. Uh.
(04:35):
Competitive video gaming is something that is well used to
be extremely taboo. I'm happy, you know. Michael is a
perfect example here that it's a little bit more mainstream
than it used to be for sure. Um, But like
I said, it was, it was taboo years ago, and um,
the older generation of just most people in general. Whenever
you say that you play video games for a living,
or you know, whenever I get into an uber and
they're asked where I'm going, what I'm doing, um, and
(04:57):
I tell them that, the usual reaction is all, my
my kid plays video games or oh, how do you
do that? And it's a very um, misunderstood topic, I
could say. So I'm happy to see the progrection that
it's made over the last couple of years because video
games has, ah well at least used to have a
pretty stigma around it, you know, people being lazy. It
wasn't a productive thing to do with your time, and
then you blind it ruins your television exactly. You couldn't
(05:21):
you couldn't make a living off of it. It was
just a huge time sync and I'm happy that, Um,
the the outlook on on the sports and video games
in general, like I said, has changed over the last
couple of years. Um, But it's just competing at the
highest level and whatever chosen video game you would like
mine happens to be called duty. But there's countless out there.
The way you've tried to explain it to people that
it's really not that different than going to a video
(05:42):
game arcade back in the day and you and five
or six different guys would all try to get the
high score on whatever the hill, pac Man, Gallagher, whatever.
You're just doing that online. The only scope of knowledge
that I had of e sports growing up was Madden.
You know. I went to college at a place where
(06:02):
people would play Madden for money in the dorm, in
the you know, in the TV or whatever. And then
eventually at some point ESPN had like a Madden League
that used to come on at like four in the
afternoons on ESPN five or some ship, and I was like, oh, yeah,
that makes sense because I've seen people do that here.
But then once it got into like the bigger world
(06:24):
of like all of these role playing games and the
first person shooters, I'm like, wellow, where is the money
coming from with that? Like, how does the money flow
from that? Because this is being broadcast on Twitch and
the internet, and I'm assuming it's no different than a
broadcast network where you turn you advertised all of the eyeballs,
right exactly. It's very it's very similar to traditionally sports
(06:46):
in at least my neck of the Woods. Um, I
play in a franchise league, so similar to an NFL
or an MLB. It's a city based franchise league. I
obviously played for the Los Angeles teams. So, uh, there
are ways to compare to additionally sports to help people
kind of figure out how to navigate the waters. But
it's definitely a little tricky because, like you said, people
don't know where the money is coming from, and you
(07:07):
hear these absurd figures like, um, and there's a game
called DODA and they're like basically they're Super Bowl. Uh,
it was a forty million dollar tournament. So people are
very reluctant and very confused when they hear the numbers
being thrown around. Like I said, it's because it was
so taboo years ago. Um, the transition of like trying
to understand the landscape is a little bit challenging for
(07:28):
people at times. For sure, it's a little forty million
dollars a little different than maddening your dorm. For sure.
I don't know that they was fighting in them do
The competition is probably about the same. How do you
how do you get into this? Because this is one
of them careers that now like do you feel like
Kasta like at this point, like why did the teacher
tell me about this ship when I was in the
(07:51):
third grade? Out of stuck with that stake of Genesis?
How do you get into this world? Like how do
you even make a team? Like are you so good
at Call of Duty as an individual that you get
a call? Is it like the matrix to someone knocked
at your door and say, followed the white Rabbit? Like
how do you get pulled deeper and deeper into this
(08:12):
world and then see it as a viable career path?
So I think I'm very confident. I could say that,
like people start out as a casual video game player
because they're doing it, whether it be for fun or
it's just a game that they enjoy. In general, I
think there are very very few cases where people actually
just start playing and want to play competitively immediately. Um.
(08:32):
In my case, I just loved playing Call of Duty
and love to playing video games my entire life. Um.
I've been playing since I could hold a controller essentially. UM,
and I kind of tripped and fell into a career.
To be honest with you, I was playing recreationally, like
I said, UM, and I had met some friends online
that introduced me to the world of competitive call Do
you don't even know what existed when I was playing.
I was kind of just in my own little bubble, uh,
(08:54):
wasting time essentially, uh in high school. And my friend
at the time, like I said that I an online. Um,
he wanted to travel to this event, and it was
so strange to me. And you know, I was like sixteen,
and UM, I don't even know if I was good.
But you know, when I'm sixteen years old, traveling across
the country to play at a video game event just
sounds like a great idea. So naturally I did it.
I begged my parents and I don't know why they
(09:16):
let me do it, but they did, so shout out
to them, UM, and I kind of just tripped and
fell in love with it. It was it was completely accidental,
and I think that's, um, honestly the best case scenario
because it's you know, my my livelihood today Roy and
the piece, I interviewed Rick Fox, former Lakers champion. What
the hell is he doing there? Well, exactly, so this
(09:38):
is I'm sure no disrespect to Rick Fox. I wanted
to beat my ass well, and I remember when we
were pre producing the piece. I think one of my
questions was, can we get excuse me, Sam, I'm gonna
speak frankly. I said, can we get a real athlete
that maybe has got into E sports? Because I don't
want to sit with an ethlete, want to sit with
(10:00):
someone that like whatever, whatever, whatever the tournament. But man,
there was something really powerful about a guy wearing his
Lakers World Championship ring. It's easier to it's easier to
connect with it. It's easier for me to connect with
first certainly, what are you doing with these nerds? Man?
You're a real athlete and so are they. What the
(10:21):
ship are you talking about? Me and you? We played
real sports. You know you can see our balls in
our pants when we played it. Are error? I think
there was no shame around pursuing a career in professional
sports because you can get a scholarship to college, which,
by the way, you can get as any sport player.
Now there's a number of colleges that are building the
sports arenas on their campuses. This is all great, but
(10:44):
let's get down to brass tacks here. How much do
these athletes make probably the best top laner in the
world in one of our games he makes probably eight
on a what And he talked about how I think
he has a son, or maybe he was talking about
one of his players. I don't know, but their parents
were like stopped playing video games, you know, go outside,
(11:06):
go outside and play. And then one of his athletes
had just signed like a three million dollar contract. And
it is very funny because my mom, I mean, we
played Super Mario, we played you know, my mom, get outside,
you know you'll, I'll give you an hour of video
game time if you go outside all things, you know,
And it's really like, my mom, you really blew my
financial opportunities, and I blow my mom to this day.
(11:28):
Your mom's the reason you're not a professionally sports player.
Home right, Okay, so constant, it's staying in that lane.
What were some of the other like similarities and differences
between like traditional sports and E sports? Are they getting
time outs? Are they getting water breaks between every round? Like?
Do you have a cornerman? Yeah? We went to Team
(11:50):
Liquids training facility in Santa Monica and when I walked in, okay,
quickly about me, I played minor league professional tennis that
it aided much of my life to tennis. Never got
to the highest level in tennis that I wanted to.
But I walked into Team Liquids training facility and I said,
this is a tennis academy. I mean there was a
(12:10):
chef who cooked us lunch. There was a training facility.
There was a breakdown room where you would where you'd
break down video watch footage. They had mental coaches maybe
the wrong word on staff. They had lots and lots
of people whose job it was to facilitate and make
sure the athletes were ready to compete. And as soon
(12:34):
as I walked in the door, I just had this
feeling of like, oh shoot, I gotta go put my
tennis shoes on and go practice. It just felt like that.
So there was a lot of similarities. So Sam, in
that world, I would assume that diet in sleep help
your mental acuity, which makes you quicker and and well
and more analytical. Um, what is the typical training day? Like, Like,
(12:57):
I'm not gonna say you don't need to be physically fit.
I feel like you do. It helps. I've been on
both sides of the spectrum of physically fit and not
physically fit. Well competing it definitely helps. How does that
text your body so it's it's much more mental. It.
Don't get me wrong, you were I'm not gonna sit
here and pretend that we go through the physical strain
that and I'm not gonna I'm not gonna agree with Naturally,
(13:19):
I would love to do a side by side cholesterol
or blood pressure test of an athlete versus we could
run a forty right now, We'll see how it goes. No,
but still sitting in a chair, because I've noticed them
game and chip costume. You ever said one of them
game and chairs? They are they are kind of ugly,
but so comfortable. They're not They're not actually prefer the
(13:40):
office said anyway. Uh So, I guess it's all it's
it's essentially all mental. Um. Obviously, being in better physical
shape is just better for your life in general, and
that impacts all aspects of your life, not just video games. UM.
But to Michael's point, how he mentioned the infrastructure behind
team likes facilities and all that, that's that's pretty much
(14:01):
the standard throughout the majority of UH Tier one E sports.
That's when you talk about League of Legends or or
DOT or counter Strike, call Duty, um, all of these things.
That is the standard we have a chef as well.
We have mental performance coaches. We have all these things,
and I think that that's another thing that people really
uh can gravitate towards an understanding because when you know,
(14:22):
you watch these videos like behind the scenes of I
don't know the charters, uh facilities, You'll you'll see like
their locker room, You'll see where they watch their uh
their game film or vote for for us. UM, You'll
see where the chef prepares their meals. It's it's a
it's a one to one comparison. So I think that
that's another thing that can help bring people uh towards
the sports and in easier light. UM. And to to
(14:43):
your point, Roy, Uh, it's it's all mental. It's it's
ninety five to five, I would say in terms of
of mental and UM that's arguably worse because you can
become your own worst enemy pretty quickly because uh, it's
it's very performance based and obviou so you know, traditional
sports are as well, but you can get hurt and
you can go out for the season and that's not
(15:04):
really I mean, it's not your fault. That's just an
unfortunate circumstance, whereas in e sports it's entirely on your performance,
and there's really bar like an extreme circumstance. There's no excuse.
It's you either played well or you played poorly. And
there's no not like the defense sucked but I did
my job. It's not like it's not like I got
through for four yards and three touchdowns with my defense
let up forty points. It's like I went out and
(15:25):
I either help my team women or I help my
team lose. So there are very strong, uh, very mental
health for sure. Are you guys drug tested? Is not
a joke? I mean, if it's that mentally straining. Yeah,
there's all types of legal and illegal focused drugs, and
I know there's stories in the NFL of there being
(15:46):
bags of greenies that guys pop in there, you know
before halftime. That keeps some focused, keeps some energizing. And
fetamines for real? Is that? Yeah? Tell me, please talk
to um. That was something that came with the CDL one.
We started franchising a couple of years ago. Before that,
it was kind of the wild wild West and you
could do what you want and it was like a
(16:06):
tough It was just there was enough money for it.
Because drug testing. I don't even I don't even know this.
It's extremely expensive to do so. Uh. Once the CDL
hit and there was like a large influx of money, no,
millions and millions of dollars. Uh, the league's drug policy
and just the franchising in general really cracked down. Um.
And now there's it ties for everything under the sun.
And when you say cdo we're talking about the call
of the league. Okay, now what do you old drug
(16:29):
tested for? What are the prohibited substances? Everything? No, we
I mean the big ones, cocaine, heroine. I'm sure crack
is frowned, none of it. Um, you could have a
legal prescription for adderall. Yeah, so there's things called t EAST.
I think it's therapeutic use exemption is the acronym UM.
(16:49):
And there are people in the league. I have friends
of mine that can vouch for this as well. When
you have a d h D, it is very hard
to actually just function as a person without uh, you know,
adderall or whatever you're on, because you need to come
back to zero. It's it's not come back to a
hunter or whatever it may be. It's not like you're
taking it to be better. It's taking it to be
like a neutral. Um. So there are cases like that
which I had, Like I said, I have very close
friends that are like that as well. Um, So there
(17:11):
are times that you have to go to a doctor,
you have to go through the process to be like, look,
are you trying to do this because you need it
or are you trying to do this to get a
competitive edge? So you see, the Hell does a phenomenal
job on making sure that that line is correct and
there's no one pushing the boundary now to that point.
After the break, I want to talk exactly about that
a little deeper, because I want to talk about the
mental health implications of what you're what you've already kind
(17:32):
of alluded to putting pressure on yourself and knowing it's
your fault that you sub today and how do you
unpack that and if you need to address that pharmaceutically,
what does the league do to help? And just I
just want to talk about the mental health implications of
what's your job because it seems stressful. In any job
that's stressful, there is definitely appeal that could help you
(17:55):
with it, and I want to talk about that a
little bit more after the break. This is beyond the scenes.
We'll be right back Sam. You know we left talking
about your practice schedule and everything that goes into preparing.
First off, like a hours, how long are you doing this?
Like if football? Yeah, if football is like nine to
six with two of days and breaking the afternoon from massage.
(18:18):
You want a full schedule breakdown, not a full schedule breakwup,
but just from sun up to sundown? How long are
you holding a video game controller? Between ten to thirteen hours?
Ship you crazy? A day? Yeah? How many days a week?
Six days? At is that? And that's that's a mean thing.
(18:42):
That's not a that's not the standard. There are there's
plus and minds obviously, um, but if you want to win,
you gotta put the hours and because if you're not
gonna do it with in someone else. Well, so I've
been around the block. I've been playing for you know,
eight years at this point, nine years. Uh, so I
understand what it takes to win, and I've won a lot.
So it's uh it's a lot of a lot of
trial and area throughout my career to to to find
(19:02):
the spot where I know that I'm putting in the
work required to win. And right now it's about that time.
Are you playing Call of Duty or are you working
on a specific exercise to improve a specific part of
your game. Um. So you guys asked me if if
it's control or held the entire time, and it's not,
it's probably it's it's it's probably eight hours of playing.
(19:23):
And then the rest is either vouter review on the day, UM,
talking with coaches or my team to figure out, you know,
plans or strategies for the scrims, or talking in general
about practice and improvement. UM, whether that be game planning
for matches that are upcoming, or if we're traveling, talking
about our schedule and Brackett and all that kind of stuff. So, UM, yeah,
I mean for the actual the schedule throughout the day,
we practice from eleven am to give or take six pm. Um.
(19:47):
Those are two scrim blocks per day with a break
in the middle scrimmage scrimmages. Yes, other teams UM had
two of those a day with a break in the
middle obviously for you know, lunch, and we'll talk about
the game play and if we're we're doing things properly,
if we're addressing the issues that we want to talk
about for that day. Um. And then afterwards when you
get home. I'll usually stream on Twitch and then that's
(20:10):
kind of the the extra time. I mean, I'll stream
for four to five hours per night, and I'm also
playing cord during that time as well, so it's the
the overtime essentially that kind of pushes those hours. Do
you ever have fun? Do you ever just go today? No,
it's really fun. It's you know, the it's a cliche,
but if you like your job, you know you're not
gonna work a day any because you voice just now
(20:32):
that was a work well, you know, you've got to
train in the study the team strategies, and yeah, it's
I mean it's video games, man. It at the end
of the day, it is my job and it is
how I make a living. But it is video games
at the same time, so I have a ton of
fun doing it. It's competing, obviously, competition is great. If
you're losing all the time, competition is probably not that great. Uh,
But yeah, I mean, it's it's video games, man. It
(20:53):
cannot be fun. This This is what I appreciate traditional
sports and that you cannot play that many hours, you know,
you even in tennis, even at our even at our
even at our most high training of two a days
in college where it was two and a half in
the morning too in the afternoon, I mean the last
(21:14):
the second half of that second workout is basically feel horrible. Well,
it's just it's it's counterproductive. You're just you know, you're
out of Yeah, you're out of your out of energy.
So chalk went up for the traditional sport that I
didn't have to play tennis twelve hours and then go
home and which I serve. So you know what I mean, Man,
That's that's where the boundary of the physical and the
mental comes into sure, because it's mental burnout, whereas in
(21:36):
physical or trad sports obviously physical burnout. Okay, so then
let's talk about the mental burnout of that. Have you
ever been impacted by that? Like, have you ever felt
that level of just I'm spent, Yes, definitely. Half. So
when I was young, I went pro at eighteen years old,
I was playing obviously long before then. I was just
(21:57):
excited to be playing the game I met. Health wasn't
something that I was really focused on because I've never
had impacted me essentially um and up until I would say,
like two years ago, it was the first time where
I had really noticed the decline. UM, and I didn't
really take the proper steps beforehand. And I didn't have
like the warning signs of myself to have the self
awareness to stop that from happening. UM So I was
(22:19):
on a different team a couple of years ago, going
through a pretty rough stint in terms of like placings
and just team performance overall, and uh, it got pretty dark.
I was contemplating like retirement. UM. I didn't know where
my career was going to take me. I didn't know
if I was even capable of playing anymore. UM So
that's the self doubt had definitely crept in. And like
I said, since I didn't really have any prior experience
(22:41):
with dealing with mental health issues, it kind of all
hit me like a truck. Uh. And it was it
was definitely something that I had to navigate being an adult,
um and trying to figure out how to just get
out of that headspace. UM. That's where Michael, when you
mentioned that the team look with things like the mental
performance coaches come in. UM, we had one that was
phenomenal with a hunt thieves or a thieves are Um.
(23:02):
So the team understands that and they've made space for
that within their facilities. Foot roll to have that the
same as a shift, the same as a USUS. So
we have and that's new, like that's college. You know,
that's new. And one thing and Sam, please talk more
about this. It's always hard as an athlete to know
am I mentally ill? Or do I just keep losing?
(23:25):
And losing sucks? You know what I mean, like like
it hurts to lose it. You take it personally. You
work so hard and you're losing. It's like a slump
is different than like I'm depressed, but there are some
crossover So how did you Definitely, I mean it's nuts,
It's uh. I think the only way to really differentiate
(23:45):
between two is how much work that you're putting in.
I mean, if you are doing the bare minimum and
you're slotting by and you're losing, then you can really
self prorecting, like, look, I'm not doing what I could
be doing right now. Someone should have my job. That
isn't me um. Whereas on the opposite of the spectrum,
if you're putting you in ten to twelve of ours day,
if you're watching, if you're doing it everything you possibly
can get better, and you're still losing. You need to
have the mental acuity be like, look, I'm doing everything
(24:07):
I can. I'm putting one into what I'm doing right now. UM,
So that that's the thing that you can take away.
Maybe your team isn't great, Maybe then you can look
outside and not pass blame, but you can understand it.
You are doing whatever you possibly can in that situation. Um.
And that was something I had to learn because when
I was doing poorly, UM, I really didn't understand that.
(24:27):
So I wasn't doing everything that I could have been
doing at the time. And once I started, and I
started to feel a lot better because it's like, look,
even if the results aren't there, I know that I'm
putting my best foot forward. So, UM, there's definitely crossover,
like you mentioned, it's just having to navigate that crossover
is very very hard to do. Can you go on
injured reserve? For my mind ain't right? Like, how does
(24:49):
it when you're talking about this as a team based
sport and you can be replaced by somebody. I don't
know how you j V squad or your minor league
or how do you get called up from the G league?
Goes in that in that world, But somebody replaces you
and they do better than you, you ain't getting your
job that so that is very true. What is the
pressure of choosing to endure mental health struggles instead of
(25:11):
just literally taking a breaking unplugging from everything. So up
until a couple of years ago, it was very taboo
to do that. That's I mean, mental health in general
wasn't really looked upon until a couple of years ago
as a serious topic and call of duty held that
that same sentiment. UM, Well, there have been cases where
people have said, look, I'm burned, I can't do this
(25:31):
right now. UM, I'm not in the head space to compete.
I am just a burden to my team. Essentially. That
has happened um over the last couple of seasons in
multiple different cases. Uh. And to answer your question, there
are substitutes on rosters that will step in for UM
that player, whether it be like, hey, I just need
a week, I need X amount of time doesn't matter. Um.
And again to your point, if they start performing very well,
(25:54):
it feels pretty rough. UM. But nine times out of ten,
the player will either be traded the next season, UM,
if that is something that ends up happening, UM, or
the players come back out right and be like, look,
I feel a lot better. I'm in a much better
mental state than I was prior. Um, but yeah, mental.
So it's like quarterbacks and football. Basically, if you lose
your job to the backup, you still have worse. Exactly,
(26:16):
You're you're you're gonna have name value. You're going to
be like, look, this guy was playing extremely well prior
to his break, and maybe his break made him feel
ten times better. Um, so you still have name value
when when that case happens, that also has happened to
your point where the substitute will step in and perform. Well, um,
that's kind of how new new players entered the league
in general. Um, but this is this is pro sports.
(26:38):
I mean, the stakes are high and there's real money.
It's so it's not like a participation trophy for everyone.
So it's like, you know, I mean, it sucks, it sucks,
but if someone steps in and does better than you,
you gotta really think if you're gonna pop off. Yeah, yeah,
I see one of Sam's mental health strategies just ran
into the room. That's it. Because everybody who competes or
(27:03):
performs at a high level needs something that loves it unconditional.
That's right, okay, dog trying to get those likes. Look,
I can bomb all day, I can bomb all day
at a comedy club, but as soon as I come home,
this little idiot licks me and tells me I'm funny.
(27:24):
That's all I need. Oh here, the door open. Here,
the door open. But yes, it's your point. He definitely helps.
Have you ever fired a real gun? Uh? No, I
have not, which is strange because I am from somewhere
that uh loves hunting in the dirty South. So yeah, no,
I'm not Sam across all the leaks. Now, you play
(27:45):
at an optimum level in your craft at some of
the lower level leagues. Um, have you seen an increase
in the level of support that the sports leagues are
providing to the players with regards to mental health? Like,
I understand the care that you got, So it would
be like the league in the NBA, for example. Yeah, yeah,
double a baseball and things like that. Uh yeah, I
(28:06):
think it's just with a rising tide lifts all ships
kind of situation. Um, Once the league franchise and we've
got that huge influx of money like I mentioned beforehand, Um,
it kind of helped everyone. I know that there was
a large UM structure put in place for we call
it challengers. That's like the that's our our thing, UM.
So you're talking about the Challenger League. There is a
(28:27):
lot more structure than there used to be. I mentioned
the Wild Wild West a little go It was very
much like that, UM. But now there's there's a lot
of different organizations. There are a professional teams that have
Academy rosters or Challengers rosters UM that are delectate directly
linked to uh, the CDL teams. There are separate entities
in their own that just that's British Premier League Soccer
(28:49):
ship where we draft you at fourteen and you're part
of our organizations. Actually that is exactly correct. Wow, I
understand when I watched the NFL how they make money?
How are these where? How are they making money? Like
why would they invest? It's not broadcast yet, there's there's
a little bit of broadcast, but like, how are where
(29:11):
is the money coming in for esport? Is it the
sale of the game. So there's a couple of different
avenues UM. The main one obviously is advertising and selling sponsorships.
Is as you do in general UM. For the individual
such as myself. There are you know, brand deals. I
have an agent similar to how an NFL would do it. UM.
You know I can't go on a commercial with say
farm and Patrick Mahomes, but I can do UM. So
(29:32):
one also you know something for like Herman Miller or
just you know brands in general that would want to
work with you. UM. They're streaming on Twitch. There's a
lot of revenue there. You can do YouTube. So it's
just content as an individual. On the individual level is
probably the number one, as well as your salary, which
I'll get into. On the league level, it's a lot
of brands, it's a lot of selling partnerships. UM. And
on the organizational level, that's where you have the tie
(29:54):
to UH. Basically in Stanley rich people UM that like
to do east or have an interest in it. So
I just played for the Seattle Search UH their partner
with the Canucks. We I currently played for the l
A Thieves, which is a branch of one hundred Thieves. UM.
They are one of like a the Triple A uh
E sports organization. They had a Series A investment when
(30:16):
they first started their company, invested by Drake. You said,
like Rick Fox and Echo Fox. There are multiple different
cases over the sports where people just have an interest
and happen to have a lot of money, and uh so,
I mean it's it's never a bad thing. Um. You know,
I'm I'm salaried and it provides my living and there's
a huge structure you have in case it's it's a
(30:36):
lot of different things. But with that celebrity involvement that
has not made it mainstream or uncool in any way.
I think it's I think it's the exact opposite. I
think that funnily enough to Drake's involved. There you go, um,
so to talk about the celebrity thing just for a second. Um,
(30:56):
I think the pandemic really moved video games into the spotlight.
I think beforehand it was pretty taboo and it was
nerdy to to just put it blatantly, um if you
played video games. And I think the pandemic with everyone
being inside, kind of tied everyone together, like, look, I
can't go out, I don't have anything to do. Let's
all hop on a war zone and hang out. So, um,
(31:17):
I think it brought celebrities into the limelight. You look
at like Kyler Murray, he just has memes around him
that he plays Call of Duty on his his Microsoft
Edge when he's when he's on the field. You know Drake,
like I said, as a series of investor of Huntering Thieves, Um,
there's there's a bunch of post Malone is even like exactly.
He loves Apex and was on complexity. So I've met
a lot of these guys. I've met celebrities strictly because
(31:38):
I played video games and these are things that I
never would have been able to do otherwise. And it's
kind of cool because it's an icebreaker. You can go
up and you can talk shipped to them and you
can do it humanizes them because when you see these
people and you see Drake, he's like, dude, why would
I ever put myself in the same room as this guy.
I wouldn't even know what to say. But it gives
you the opportunity to be able to speak freely and
not be as nervous. Um. And obviously that's just an
(31:59):
extremely privileged standpoint because I can talk to these people.
But because that's always my thing, I just want to
make sure that I think it's cooler if they're legitimate
fans and have some level of emotional investment in what's
happening versus this just being I've put some money on
this and I am here to check on my like
like almost earnest in the way that like Ryan Reynolds
(32:19):
and Rob mclaney bought that soccer team over in England.
But they're legit there and running the like they are
invested in care versus just somebody. Yeah, this is my
liquor line. What the fund do you know about liquor? Yeah? Tequila,
my my tequila. Did you go down there and check
on your tequila plants? Bitch? Did you? You probably get
(32:41):
after the break? Costa, I want to talk to you
about your experience going to one of these tournaments, what
it was like. We need to talk about the salary. Sam.
I don't want to pocket watch you, but I want
to just we'll give us the median. We don't need
your number, but give us the median. And uh, I
want to talk a little bit about women representation within
(33:03):
your sport as well. This is beyond the scenes. We'll
be right back beyond the scenes. We're round and third
and headed for home talking E sports. Now, Michael Costa,
you went to one of these E sport events. Now
I'll give you my scope of knowledge. We have The
Wiz with Fred Savage where he went to play um
(33:26):
Super Mario three before it came out. The whole movie
was basically commercial from three it got my ass. And
then I also have The Last Starfighter where a dude
was so good at a video game that an alien
from space came down and said, can you help free
our press people with your video game skills? That's my
(33:50):
spectrum of knowledge of being good at video games and
being invited to do it at a pinnacle that's a
cult hit. Bro, those are some references. Let me tell
you those are some Tier one. I'm forty four years old.
I'm old. So when when you step into the Barclays Costa,
like just the array of people, They're like, what's the
(34:13):
demo for this? Is it? Yeah? That's a good question. Well,
you know, my my previous knowledge of this was that
documentary The King of Kong. You ever saw that about
the competitive donkey Kong? And I remember putting that maybe
in the DVD player thing, what is this trash? Why
(34:35):
did my brother make you watch this? And immediately A
suckered into because it's it's about competition. It's about watching
people compete. And at their highest level. So I love that.
So Barkley Center, I definitely felt fish out of water.
I definitely felt like I was the tallest person there. Uh,
there was twenty there was twenty thousand people there. I
(34:58):
immediately was envious and jealous of the fandom, of the passion,
of the enthusiasm, of the energy. You know, tennis, you
clap like this. I maybe had two people at my matches.
I was watching Team Liquid compete in counter Strike, and
all the fans, audience members, you know, whatever you call,
(35:20):
They're wearing these bracelets. And when one team would place
the bomb on the the other team, you know, and
I'm I'm gonna butchers the sport. But when one bomb
gets placed, a clock starts ticking down, and every time
a second goes off, everyone in the stadiums bracelet pulses,
(35:43):
twenty pulsing bracelets. So then as the bomb gets closer
and closer to going off, these bracelets start glowing to
add to the terrifying notion that this bomb is gonna
explode soon. I'm like, stand, it's so cool, Roy, I'm
standing there like there's twenty thousand bracelets going brighter red,
(36:05):
brighter red, and the other teams trying to like defend
or find the bomb or whatever. The it was like, oh,
ship the sports you guys tied in the fans in
the game. That was a badass move. And that was
when I was sold. Now, I didn't I don't play,
and I didn't buy the jersey, but I immediately I
(36:27):
immediately got it and gave it some props because it
was it was a fun environment. Sam, are people bedding
on this ship? Because this is wait, I'm sorry, what
on DraftKings? I can just go on a gambling app
and just get Yeah, give me forty do on Sam
to school to get kills some parlazy do everyone. Wow,
(36:51):
that's a level of knowledge that I do not possess
about this. So if it's people, you're streaming the exact
same thing I'm I'm I'm sitting here preaching it's the
same thing. So if it's being live stream there's revenue
coming from that, and eventually that has to trickle back
to the players at a at a high level. Pocket
watching roy its pocket watching time at a high level.
(37:15):
Could I make six figures doing this for a living? Yeah? Absolutely.
Um So when you're a member of the studio, whether
that be substitute or on the starting roster. Your minimum
salary is fifty. You cannot make under fifty if you
are a contracted CDO professional. How long is the season? Uh,
the season is nine months, school years exactly. Got your
(37:38):
time off. So you make your side hustles on twitch
and do at the streams, you get your celebrity stuff. Okay,
the high end, you're making high six figures, high sixes,
mid mid to mid to high sixes. On the extreme cases,
like the highest played player in the league makes high
six figures. Um, I'm in the middle. I'm not gonna
(37:59):
say where, So just some people who aren't good with
their figures. Six figures is a hundred thousand dollars, so
you're saying mid too high. You can make half a million,
can make half a million to about five thousand is
like the majority of the leader probably. That's awesome. So
when you when you look at the research, you know,
(38:20):
with all of these different teams, at least the research
on the outside, there seems to be a lack of
representation of women in East sports. Have you seen that
number slowly growing over the span of your career. Talk
about where representation is for women when you started, versus
where you see it going today, because I would imagine
there isn't a need for a women's like we're not
(38:41):
even get into muscle mass and size different. It's your
thumb movie, Can you move up? Too? So it's funny
you asked, because I think the was it was either
yesterday the day before. Um, there was the first woman
to qualify for the Challengers Elite, which is basically like
their tournament that is in the Challenger League. Um, that
(39:03):
was the first time in forever. Uh and that was
like two days ago, I think. Um, so definitely, there's
there's more women representation every year. It's building, and I
think that that's just across the sports as well. I
don't even think that's specific to call duty. You know,
Valerie has women's leagues. They have full blown I don't
know what they call it and Valerie, but they have
like Academy rosters, they have a full blown league strictly
for women. So I think that as as the year
(39:26):
goes on, or as the years go on, excuse me,
I can't help but agree that that as time goes on,
there's just more and more women representation, which is incredible
to see UM specific to call duty. I think we're
lagging behind just a tad because it's not really something
that I think women really gravitate towards. I think Valerie
is probably leading the space right now in terms of
just e sports as a whole, because I was watching
(39:46):
that the other day and no joke, and it was
legitimately impressive. Because I'm horrific and Valerie, I can't. I
can't play on keypboard mouths at all to save my
life in any aspect. Thank god I have a controller
to to make my living on UM. But yeah, I
think women and are are definitely trablazers in the space
right now. For sure, is there in terms of the
fight for the because I don't want to. I want
(40:07):
to be very careful about not rolling the sports community
into the gaming community as a whole. Right I feel
like there are two different things. You have professional gaming,
which where there might be some degree of gender discrimination,
and you're saying that there are leagues and that there
are efforts being that there are efforts to make things
more equitable for women. But on the gaming side, we're
(40:30):
just talking to regular Joe blow game or in the basement,
women are subjected to all types of harassment and trolling
and bullying and docking. How much can the e sports
community do to try to speak out against that. It's
kind of like the racism and soccer. Soccer is not racist,
but there's a lot of the fans that you're talking
(40:51):
crazy in them stands. So has the sports community been
able to do anything, I guess, to speak out about
that or try to stop and curtail that. I think
that transcends the sports screen. I think that becomes just
like a humanity thing and trying to be a good
person in general. Um, But to your point, absolutely, I
think just trying to be as positive as you can
about the space, and I think that gaming definitely has
(41:12):
that stigma attached. Michael. Since you're such a filthy casual,
I'm sure that you could you probably agree that. You know,
there there are people that when you talk about video games,
they're just people that are assholes, and I think that's
in all walks of life. Unfortunately. I think that you're
absolutely right, Roy, Um. You know, the sexism and stuff
like that, it definitely is not great for the space,
not even just the sports, but video games and life
(41:33):
in general. That's something that we need to be a
lot more progressive one. Um. You know, I do my
best to spare as much positivity in my stream as
I can, and I'm I'm very welcoming to to anyone,
but um, you're you're definitely not wrong there. And I
think that when you have women transcending in the sports
and become I mean, you know, like I said with
the Valerie thing or or her name is Kelsey in
in Call of Duty, Um, when you have these women
(41:54):
making headway into space, I think that sets an example
because you know, these women could kick your ass in
the video game that talking about. So I think that
is something that um, you know, hopefully down the line
and in a couple of years or hopefully sooner, um
progression is made. But I mean that's just a humanity
thing in general, just trying to be a good person.
I don't think that's necessarily a new sports thing. There's
(42:15):
something beautiful as we get more women playing um competitive
e sports in particular Call of Duty. There's something beautiful
about men and women trying to kill each other in
the video. I mean, like that is right now it's
mostly men trying to kill each other, but it's adds
such a beautiful complexity when it's both genders both working
(42:37):
together and also working against each other. And that was
your takeaway from this whole seg that a film casual? No,
but I mean you talked about it a little bit
at the top, Coster, but you know as a casual
coming into this and having covered it, how did it
change your view of just you know, even just the
(43:01):
idea that video games make people crazy, like like in
theory right, like they go, oh, video games make people violate.
But then you have that's such a yeah, I know,
it's such as take I know you have an arena
full of people watching violence and people doing Violet. Aren't
they all fighting? Well? You know, I I just was
(43:26):
reminded and humbled that what I think is one way
is what I think. But it's so important to step
out of your comfort zone because I would be the
dad that would say, get off the video games, go outside,
dos go outside. But then you walk into the Barklay
Center and tickets were sold, and I just say, this
(43:50):
is another healthy outlet. I know that what you know,
they're they're doing a violent game or whatever. But it
was it was really fun to see the team. There
was a team aspect, there was a coach, they were
learning lessons. There was people that were disappointed, there's people
that have achieved that day. It was preparing them for
all facets of life. That's cool. So just to interjectually quickly,
(44:15):
that was your first and only experience with the sports
correct counter Strike tournament. You probably picked the best thing
that you could have possibly done to have your to
to do your for your first time. Yeah, well that's
probably why we picked it too. Counterstrike fandom, uh is
kind of one on its own. I think it's a
league above the rest. Uh, not to make the joke,
but League of Legends is also very good. Uh. Counter
Strike has such passion behind it, um, and it transcends
(44:39):
the game as well. It goes to nationality. European counter Strike, Um,
you know a team like it was Brazilian counter Strike.
There are it's like we could compare to soccer. I mean,
there's legitimate fandom when it comes to nationalities within counter strike,
and that's why it's so incredible. Like when North America
does well, people are losing their minds. Um. You know,
years and years ago Cloud nine was doing incredible. They
want a major with Shroud. It's so um counter striker is.
(45:03):
I think the extreme example of fandom and e sports
and legal legends is also incredible as well well. Sam,
I can't thank you enough for coming on Costa. Thank
you as well for contributing to this wonderful, wonderful conversation.
Hope we converted Costa while we were here, Roy, I
hope we did. Yeah. Yeah, let's baby steps, Let's put
them on a Super Nintendo. Let's go to six buttons.
(45:25):
He's not ready for left L two R two. He's
not like the keyboard and mouse yet. That's all the
time we have for today, but hopefully by now we're
taking you beyond the scenes to see you next week.
Listen to the Daily Show Beyond the Scenes on Apple podcast,
(45:48):
the I Heart Radio Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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