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1 Reader
Hello Mikhail, could you introduce your self for our readers here at Fnatic.com and also give a run down of your past
Hello, my name is Mikhail Kuleshov, but some of you may know me as "casual", on of the electronic sports enthusiasts out there. I've been involved in gaming for about ten years from now on starting with Unreal Tournament 99, which I still play time to time. Me and my former classmate Alexander "Lexx" Zavoloka formed a team in UT which shortly became one of the strongest squads in CIS and the first sponsored team in Baltics. This is still fun remembering those days.
After the era of Unreal was over I've tried myself as a news writer for one of the international electronic sports websites. I still remember my first interview with Anton "Cooller" Singov, Russian Quake star. I'd finished editing it at about 5.00 o'clock in the morning and actually had an exam in the university at 8.00, needless to say that I was feeling myself a bit sleepy that day. Then it was a hard circulation of websites and projects, I've managed to try myself on a very different positions in electronic sports, as a journalist, as a manager of a Latvian top team. I'm still a general manager of Latvian National Team. |
Now you are manager of the very intriguing "mygamingteam", what is the concept behind it and how did you come up with the idea?
The concept behind MyGamingTeam project is the idea of a collective management of a professional counter-strike team. The members of the "club" will be able to vote over every single thing regarding the team, from the name of it, to the player transfers. They would even be able to set the salaries for players and staff. There will be a lot of media available for the members such as the matches video streams, highlights, articles and interviews, in game statistics of players. They will be able to submit the articles by themselves as well. This is a real collective control of a professional gaming organization.
The idea originally came from the similar soccer project. I just realised one day that electronic sports is much more suitable for such an experiment, cause we're more used to internet. I would say that this kind of management is ideal for a gaming team cause there are no other purposes besides having a good results on events.
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An experiment on this scale must take a lot of dedication and also experience in eSports, who will be 'the men behind the scenes' for MyGamingteam, but also what is their previous experience within eSports?
| Besides me there's a couple of known journalists from Russia, which are very interested in working on a MGT project as well. The technical part is made by Janis "THUG" Are, a very experienced coder, we were working with him on a couple of projects in the past and the visual component is held by Martin "MRTN" Mueller, young, but capable designer. Besides that there might be a known person involved in the process as the curator of project, his job will be to watch all things to be done fair. Follow the news and you will not miss the announcement. As I have said I've managed to receive a lot of experience in and outside of electronic sports both. Besides being a gaming manager, journalist and functionaire I work in an advertising industry and I truly believe, that I will receive a bachelors diploma on "Advertisement and marketing" in my university next year. But to be honest, experience comes when you practically try something. There's a wise Chinese saying - "The hardest point of every path is the beginning of it". |
 | Mikhail sure can pose |
Although the experience of the management is reassuring, how do you guarantee the minimum 6 000 subscribers that you wont run away with the money?
| First of all, there's no reason for cheating, you will not be able to buy some reputation afterwards. Secondary the legitimate side of the project will be solved by registering a Trust, which will be the representative side of MGT and a curator person will be watching the fulfilling of obligations. After all you don't need to pay anything right now, the money is asked only when the 6,000 members are gathered. I think that we will be able to find some more ways how to ensure possible members during the starting period. And if somebody really knows how to do it or has any suggestions we are always open for the talk, the contact data can be found on the MGT website. |
You aim to raise a minimum of 150 000 euro's per year, do you believe this to be a realistic target, but also why choose such a high figure when other professional clans get by on much less?
| I actually do believe that this is quite realistic. If talking about the amount, 150 000 is the point, from which the team would be really independent and able to visit EVERY possible event out there, to make all the boot camps needed and to pay to the players as much as they deserve. Nowadays every assumption regarding the pro teams budget will be only provisional, how about MYM having more than a million of invested funds? This could be a real push-forward for the scene, both financial and managerial. Besides that, all the money won on at tournaments by a team will go into the budget of organization and that will allow them to achieve every single goal out there. No big daddies thirsty for money, isn't that a real freedom? |
So my understanding from that is that the team will have no sponsors and will be entirely self sufficient, is that true?
| The idea is for a financially independent team, but the decision will be made by the members, the project has a lot of publicity and we hope MGT will have will be quite attractive for the investors I think and this is the question to think about. |
As for the team itself, do you intend to focus just on Counterstrike 1.6, or other eSports games such as Warcraft 3 and maybe even smaller games such as CoD4?
| There's a lot attention for CoD4 nowadays, with some calling it a "substitute" for a CS in future and we really think that if there will be a financial opportunity to have a squad in CoD or Warcraft 3 in the organization, why not? You name the players - we do the negotiations. But we want to focus on Counter-Strike 1.6 as a starting discipline, as it is the most spectacular game right now. |
 | Looking rather strapping in suspenders |
For yourself and other members of MGT is the organisation considered a full time job or still a hobby?
| I've always positioned electronic sports very seriously for myself and am doing it still, there's a lot of work to do if we want the project to meet the goals. There's also many things to do with the coding and design as we want to add much more features to the existing website, so they're also working hard. We're planning some more faces to get involved in the project in the future as the working plan is really very impressive. |
Thank you for the interview Mikhail, any last words or shout outs?
Thank you too, Simon. Let's make electronic sports a bit more fun together. Thanks to my mom and dadm Lexx, Infantilly, Drive-, THUG and everyone who has helped me getting were I am now and a lot of support they provided me during the work on MyGamingTeam. |
And finally, where do you expect to see MGT in one years time?
I expect that all the subscribers will be satisfied with the results of our collective work and when they throw up a world counter-strike top in their own mind, the team lead by them would be on the first place. |
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I'm not that sure of what this is, so is this like fantasy esports?
No, its a real eSports organisation such as fnatic. Users pay a set amount and then they can vote for the players the organisation sign etc etc.
Interesting interview and a very interestin concept!
Good luck MGT!
heard of this as a concept for a soccer team, and i'd agree that it's more suitable for eSports. problem is, soccer fans are mst likely older and therefore more willing to spend some money than eSport addicts.
i won't spend anything on this project, but i'll be following the action with interest!
Cool idea, and milsen yeah its been done with footie. I just dont see it really happening as esports players arent like pop stars :D
good idea :]
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