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Pete Vlastelica is a true product of the Internet and Silicon Valley boom era, studying in Stanford in the late 90s and later getting an MBA at Berkeley. \xa0From his entrepreneurial exploits building, growing, raising funding and eventually selling Yardbarker to FOX Sports to his most recent role as President & CEO of Activision Blizzard Esports (including Commissioner of the Overwatch League), building the Overwatch and Call of Duty Franchise Leagues.\xa0 Incredible stories and insights into his illustrious career and close up look into the world\u2019s first franchise Esports Leagues. \xa0\n\xa0\nKey Highlights\nComing out of Stanford into Disney Internet Group in late 1999, going to London\nBack to New York working in a design and software agency\nBack to California for an MBA at Berkeley, focus on Entrepreneurship \u2013 while studying focused on starting his own company\nFirst idea failed, fractional ownership of Music rights (too complicated)\nStarted Yardbarker with four buddies from Berkeley \u2013 first investors was one of the instructors, friends & family, bootstrapping, US$ 100k lasted 18 months\nYardbarker become the largest network of sports blogs, with over 1,000 independent sites, bloggers and pro athletes (pre-Twitter days) \xa0\nGrowing the platform to over 22 million uniques and attracting millions in advertising dollars\nFunding rounds, from US$ 100k, to US$ 1 million to US$ 6 million (Series A) from proper VC investors (valuations in the twenty million range)\nCompetition from other Ad Networks and 2008/09 Financial Crisis came along, new lessons, going into survival mode\nFox Sports buys the business in 2010, a successful transaction for everyone involved\nFox Sports Digital & Fox Sports days \u2013 building the digital platforms within the Network (FS1) \u2013 \u201csucked into the belly of the corporate beast\u201d\nJoining Activision Blizzard, a true Gaming Giant (US$ 67 billion valuation), to build their new Esports Leagues modelling the sports franchise model\nOverwatch League \u2013 first League in 2018 with 12 teams \u2013 after 12 months of planning, building rev share model, governing structures, etc \xa0\nBuilding a global City based franchise League \u2013 first of its kind \xa0- attracting top owners (NFL, NBA, Premier League team owners)\nEducational process with investors \u2013 franchise fees starting US$ 20 million now up to US$ 30-50 million (3rd\xa0party sources)\nLeague monetizes League sponsors, media rights, licensing, merchandise, etc and shares with the teams in addition to prize pool (like in traditional sports) \u2013 first season reaching US$ 200 million in revenue (3rd\xa0party source)\nBuilding an entire League infrastructure from scratch, including minor league structures around the world, ultimately building a career path for players\nCall of Duty League \u2013 similar model but not as easy as copy/paste, designing a League to fit the Game, different styles and modes\nHow 2020 effected the Leagues and season \u2013 huge learning curve on online vs offline competitions\nDynamics between Teams and top star players \u2013 opportunities for sponsors and partners\nKorea learning \u2013 cultural export from K-Pop to Esports\nInteractivity between Gamers and fans, way beyond traditional sports model \u2013 Esports is taking fan engagement model to another level \u2013 sports needs to learn from it\nComparing Esports Leagues vs Major Esports Competition with tens of millions in prize money\nDota 2 \u2013 The International \u2013 tens of millions in prize pool, mostly generated from in-game purchase and special access passes by the fans\nThe difference to traditional sports \u2013 short game of content (shorten supply vs demand), Esports is the opposite, 24/7 interaction with fans\n\xa0\nAbout\nPete Vlastelica is President and CEO of Major League Gaming (MLG), a division of Activision Blizzard devoted to creating the best esports experiences for fans across games, platforms and geographies. Prior to MLG, Vlastelica was the Executive Vice President of Digital at FOX Sports, where he focused on content and product development, social m