Business of Esports TV: LeBron Dunks into Fortnite

(Livestream 139)

In this segment, we discuss LeBron making his way into Fortnite via Icon Series skin.

The Business Of Esports brings you news, debates, and all the information you need to know about the gaming sector, the world’s fastest-growing market. With Paul “The Profit” Dawalibi leading the charge, and a variety of special guests, BoE TV is the only place to find insider information on the esports industry!

Check out the full livestream here:

Paul Dawalibi 42:49
But let’s do something a bit more lighthearted because we were talking about traditional sports. I probably should have connected this to that traditional sports conversation. LeBron is coming to fortnight supposedly the these data miners the headline here fortnight leakers say LeBron James is coming to the game as an icon series skin. The NBA star is expected to arrive in the next update. This has been discovered by data miners that the bronze skin is coming. There will be kings bling quests, and obviously there is tie in with his new Space Jam. V LeBron in fortnight. Is there anyone who doesn’t like this?

Jimmy Baratta 45:07
I can’t imagine who wouldn’t like this? You know, I haven’t played fortnight in probably two years now. I still log in for events like this just to grab the like the Mandalorian skin and the Tony Stark Iron Man, I just log in I get the cool loot, I still spend a boatload of money on a game, I don’t play it, I might come back to it one day, you know, like, I don’t know, but then I’m gonna log in, I’m gonna check it out. And that’s how they’re keeping my interest at least but more importantly, I just I think it continues to show these crossover activations that I think fortnight does better than anyone else. I can’t name one activation that they did that I wasn’t a fan of, or one that a competitor has done that I thought was arguably better than a fortnight activation and that is a very controversial statement. I’ll

Paul Dawalibi 45:51
stop with let you guys chime in on Jimmy I love what you said and that actually begs a bigger question because I do the exact same like I will log into a game I don’t play Tobias skin thinking what if you know what if it doesn’t come back? And what if I decide one day I’m gonna I’m really gonna grind this game I’m curious what you guys think if like what percentage of the of the customer base of these games falls into that segment? I think because there’s no way two out of six here have the same kind of mo Are we just weird?

Jimmy Mondal 46:33
No, no, I think it’s decent like I’m sure Lindsey was gonna say the same.

Lindsay Poss 46:38
Yeah, I was just going to say I mean they had 27 million people view the Travis Scott concert I think that fortnight is extremely adept at getting people to log in

Paul Dawalibi 46:47
but no but there’s like this is

Lindsay Poss 46:49
and and do things

Paul Dawalibi 46:51
like how many of the people don’t play the game Lindsay and are logging in just to get the skin on the off chance they might decide to come back to play the game yeah, I

Jimmy Mondal 47:00
think Yeah, like a lot of the draw for so many of these games is the cosmetics is the skins like valorant Cs ago Liga legends like some sick league scene comes out some six years ago skin comes out they’re gonna go get like I even get and I hate Lee bro, but I still hate play it someday you know what I mean? Like, but that’s not a great example because you guys don’t play fortnight but um

William Collis 47:20
Wait wait you hate play? I’ve never heard that term before That’s hilarious. You hate

Jimmy Mondal 47:24
Oh, I hate do so many things in my life. Just in general. But hey, playing League I’ve been playing that game for a decade at this point. It makes me the worst version of myself I’ve ever seen. And yet I played

Paul Dawalibi 47:37
who like I’m curious what you guys think from an audience from a brand perspective? Who’s the bigger winner here? Is this is this LeBron gets because I can LeBron really get more fans than he already has. Like so. This fortnight the obvious winner here right like there really isn’t much

Lindsay Poss 47:58
no big The reason I say that is because fortnight has a much younger audience and I think LeBron is really adept at at appealing to like all age groups by doing different things. So I do think that it’s smart of him to jump on board and like now I mean not that most six year olds don’t know who LeBron is but that’s just really like puts icing on the cake like I want to go see Space Jam on Yeah,

William Collis 48:19
well that’s why we’re here is really cam

Jeff Cohen 48:26
German for LeBron when for space Sam, whoever owns that IP. And

Jimmy Baratta 48:30
also brawny Ronnie his son is a great as a you know, sign of phase he plays nice. He’s also going to monetize his brand in college next year. I’m sure it went down with these rules. So it’s ties in on multiple levels. Yeah, but I agree with William definitely. Space Jam is the big winner, right? Because I mean, it wasn’t a Netflix that came out saying their biggest fear was losing their viewership to fortnight like a year or two ago. And so CCM got ahead. Yeah, I think this fortnight times

Paul Dawalibi 49:01
10 says fortnight stays winning and quest he says Hello people of the industry. Hello. questing. Great to Great to see you.

Jimmy Baratta 49:08
Did it. Did anyone else log into fortnight to watch the JJ Abrams? Star Wars exclusive sneak peek Paul saying Heck no. I logged in for that.

Paul Dawalibi 49:18
I know, JJ Abrams record.

Lindsay Poss 49:23
For the record. We had this talk I don’t know a month ago or whatever about LeBron tweeting out asking for the best gaming chair. Did you ever buy one? I don’t know because he never updated it because it wasn’t

Paul Dawalibi 49:38
it should have been an ad it should have been in

Lindsay Poss 49:42
the game tier companies were smart they would have jumped right in there somehow. know I’ve been looking for

Jeff Cohen 49:51
opportunity. A chair company or something