Esports

How Esports and Enter Records Gives an Audience to Undiscovered Artists


At this year’s Intel Extreme Masters, after Michał “Carmac” Blicharz delivered an emotional opening speech, and legendary player Jarosław “pashaBiceps” Jarząbkowski delivered the trophy, an unseen spectacle took to the stage. Swedish music producer August Wolhelmsson performed an electronically-tinged anthem to a backdrop of championship highlights, with fellow Swede and songwriter Menke providing the vocals.

This music performance was the latest result from Enter Records, a collaborative label between Universal Music Group Europe, and ESL Database-Link-e1521645463907. Launched in August 2018, its mission is to find and promote relevant music artists within the evolving esports space, both by integrating their music into broadcasts and by bringing them on stage.

“My first job is to give artists an audience if they don’t have one, or people who have one, to grow that audience,” Gustav Käll, head of Enter Records and Head of Esports at Universal Music Group, told The Esports Observer. The first to release a track on the label and to experience the exposure of esports was Christian ”TheFatRat” Buttner. A good test case for Universal, after his initial performance at ESL One Cologne 2017 the electronic dance music (EDM) artist saw his YouTube follower count rise from around 700-800, to 3.5M today.

“That’s what it’s all about. Finding emerging artists that we believe in, and we think the gaming audience will like.”

“Essentially, he had an audience, but now we have grown that a bit over a year and a half to these numbers,” said Käll. “That’s what it’s all about. Finding emerging artists that we believe in, and we think the gaming audience will like. Of course, we’ve been focusing on electronic music, but now that we have this setup, we can work with other genres and we can try new things.”

As previously explained on an episode of the TEO Podcast, Käll is looking to build a Super Bowl half-time show equivalent within esports. While several tournament brands still seem comfortable with DJs, there is a growing demand for more diverse musical performances.

Related Article: ESL Names Former T.E.A.M. Marketing Managing Director as New Chief Commercial Officer

“IEM Katowice was different because the scale of the event,” said Käll. “The brand identity, at least to me, wants to be more of the Champions League, with the hymns, the big epic feeling to it. That’s why we felt that August would be a fit this time around.”

In the past, some esports events have mismatched artists with the expectations of the attendees. In Käll’s opinion, the performer must have at least a basic knowledge of the esports target group; simply putting a famous name on stage would lead to a cringe-worthy performance, a clear backfire for any producer.

“You need to have a story, why the artist is there,” he explained. “I don’t want to bash Blizzard Database-Link-e1521645463907, but when they had DJ Khaled on stage at Overwatch Database-Link-e1521645463907 League…why was he there? There was no answer to that question. For me, when we put TheFatRat on stage, the reason he was there was because he uses game sounds in his electronic music. He comes from gaming, he is from the target group.”

“You need to have a story, why the artist is there…”

One of the noteworthy amalgamations of music and esports in the last year has been K/D/A, a virtual pop group created around League of Legends Database-Link-e1521645463907 characters, voiced by real pop-stars, and unveiled as a vehicle to sell in-game skins. “Music really, in that context, is marketing,” said Käll. ”What Riot Games Database-Link-e1521645463907 really nailed is the whole concept where it led to selling skins for these heroes, which is incredible to me. It was so well executed, and I think everyone can do it, but you just need to have the right people working in this.”

When it comes to the traditional sports and entertainment industry, Käll also sees a revolution on the horizon; where esports is putting a massive pressure to change on the existing paradigm. “When Apple came out with the iPhone, Sony Ericsson and Nokia vanished in three years because they didn’t adapt or change fast enough. A lot of these entertainment companies will face the same fate,” he explained.

“There are obviously a few of them that I think take the full leap, and create a separate company that will only work with this, then they have the setup to be successful in transitioning into an entertainment company within esports. The sports and esports world, even though we share five letters of our name, we are so different.”


Want to hear more about the role music, film, and TV have in building esports culture? Gustav Käll will be a speaker at the HIVE esports business conference in Berlin on April 11, 2019. The first international esports business conference in Europe’s capital of esports. An unprecedented conference format featuring thought leaders of industries adjacent to esports sharing their insights. Click here to reserve your seat!





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