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Prior to his journey in the music apparel and merchandising business, We Are Nations 
co-founder and CEO Patrick Mahoney had one really bad week in the early 1990s. His punk rock band was dropped from its label before ultimately splitting, he lost a box of the band’s shirts while on the road, and to top things off, his girlfriend at the time kicked him out of her place. Suddenly in a rough spot, he needed a job—so he started working for the company that printed his band’s shirts.
He began cleaning silkscreens at the printing shop, but his boss saw potential for Mahoney to capitalize on his history touring and networking with other bands. Soon, he was driving new business to the shop. “In a lot of ways, I never really left—certainly in spirit,” he told The Esports Observer, reflecting on that experience working at the print shop. “One thing led to another, [and now it’s] 25 years later.”
Over that span, Mahoney experienced the lows of a failing business venture and alcoholism, but rebounded and worked his way up to an opportunity to start another company with esports apparel brand, We Are Nations. The Esports Observer spoke with Mahoney about his DIY path from punk rock to esports, and how past struggles forged him into the leader he is today.
Rise and Fall
After Nirvana signed to a major label, there was a lot of buzz around other bands in the alternative rock scene. Mahoney saw a potential future with his own band. “Major labels were gobbling it up, so we were part of that rush,” he said. “It was very heady times. It was like the sky was the limit. We were getting money to record music and go out on tour, traveling the world and playing to these people.”
At the time, Mahoney had no intentions of getting into the merchandising business. But when circumstances pushed him into it and he began thriving, he embraced the opportunity and was glad to at least still be around the punk rock scene.
“I took to it right away. I was in. I was still in the community and scene that I wanted to be in. I’ll admit that it took me a while to accept the fact that I was in the apparel business and was not going to be some shit-hot record producer or something, but I came around on that too,” he said. “When we hooked up with this band Oasis—suddenly, they were over doing arena tours in the U.S., and we were figuring out how to keep up with demand. I think that’s when I knew I was in, because that’s when you start meeting your competitors and making connections, and building that network specific to the music business side.”
In 2003, Mahoney set out on his own and established The Merchandise Company, where he served as president. He credits the five-year experience as the most formative of his career, as the safety net of working for someone else was removed.
“That’s probably where I learned everything—and how not to do pretty much everything,” he said. “When you start to get kicked in the teeth a little bit, it’s when you start to understand that you may have been a bit restless, but that paycheck came every week, you had a 401k, and you had insurance. It’s a different thing, and it sort of toughens you up…but it kind of beats you down too. In retrospect, I think it was necessary.”
As necessary as it might’ve seemed, Mahoney said he truly was beaten down by the experience. In 2007, the company sold half of its shares to principals of The Century Family. In 2008, Mahoney departed.
“We ran it into the ground. I basically got fired from my own company, and I went and got sober. I was a raging alcoholic coming out of that. It was a tough couple of years,” said Mahoney. “Without sounding arrogant, it’s been building up way better ever since. If you call that part two, starting from nothing again, I’m really proud of how we got it right the second time.”
“It’s been a good story. There’s not anything about that that I’m ashamed of,” he added. “I can’t thank that situation enough, in a lot of ways, for getting me to where I am now.”
A Second Chance
Pictured: Mahoney speaking on a panel about esports fashion at the HIVE Berlin esports business conference
Mahoney credits recovery with helping to instill “a renewed spirt and self-reliance,” and said that it helped create a baseline for a second run. In 2009, he took a role as a general manager for AMP Merchandising, which was owned by musician Sarah McLachlan, and helped establish a U.S. office while negotiating agreements and signing bands to merchandising deals. He then worked as an executive vice president for Cinder Block LLC, a company that handles music merchandising and brand licensing, from 2011-14.
In 2014, Mahoney joined Manhead, LLC, a music merchandising company founded by CEO Chris Cornell (not the late Soundgarden singer) in the mid-90s when he was touring in his own band. Mahoney was named executive vice president and general manager, and helped double the company’s annual revenue over the first three years.
“This is disruption again in sports, and I feel extremely lucky to get to do this twice.”
After a couple of years of growing Manhead together, Mahoney and Cornell decided that they wanted to start a new business and seek a fresh challenge. They considered selling Manhead, but ultimately opted not to. “We said: OK, we’ll keep this, it just works. We have a good business here,” Mahoney recalled. “We’re better off keeping it, but we need to find something else to do to grow and expand, and keep that entrepreneurial spirit wet.”
Related Article: We Are Nations CEO Says Esports Carries Every Benchmark of a Sport
Unexpectedly, that “something else” was esports. Mahoney and Cornell had an epiphany after being invited to ESL One Cologne in 2016. They walked into the arena and saw the future.
“We were just blown away by it. You walk into this arena that I’ve been in before for a concert, and the production is just as good, if not better. It’s sold out. I didn’t understand Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
They already had the infrastructure in place to produce merchandise on a global scale, so while esports was an entirely new space, that barrier to entry was already removed. Mahoney also saw parallels between the rise of esports and what he had experienced as a musician in the punk scene as bands hit the mainstream and became big business.
Pictured: Dancers perform during an esports fashion show while wearing LCS team jerseys
“Another piece was that [esports] was pioneering stuff. I grew up in punk rock, and in the late 80s we were putting on our own shows, booking our own tours, and putting out our own music on cassettes and seven-inches. It was very DIY, and of course that was corrupted by Nirvana in a lot of ways,” he said. “I had gone over that bridge and watched that DIY thing become commercialized. It’s happening in esports too, to the extent that I learned lessons from back then: in retrospect, what was good about it, what was bad about it, and where it all ended up 30 years later.”
Attending a Call of Duty World League event in Las Vegas soon thereafter, Mahoney saw the lesser-known teams fighting for success and recognition in the open bracket, and again viewed parallels to unsigned bands trying to create their own opportunities without significant backing. “This is what we used to do with music,” he said. “It was really kind of inspiring.”
A New Approach
We Are Nations was founded in 2016 and has become a significant player in the esports apparel space since, serving as the official merchandising sponsor for Riot Games’ League of Legends Championship Series , creating apparel for teams such as G2 Esports and OpTic Gaming , and recently partnering with retailer Walmart to sell esports merchandise through its online store.
“It’s been incredibly rewarding to be part of something new. I thought music was keeping me young, but this is keeping me even younger,” he said. And while his 13-year-old son isn’t interested in the various opportunities that have emerged from Mahoney’s career in the music industry, esports is a different story altogether. “He loves the fact that he’s getting all these jerseys, and I can start bringing him to tournaments,” Mahoney added. “It’s brought us together too.”
Mahoney said that “there was no hesitation” with starting We Are Nations, and that he was ready for his second chance at co-founding and running a company. He had spent several years picking apart the issues that ultimately sunk his run at The Merchandise Company, and said it was weighing on his shoulders. But this time around, he feels well-supported thanks to his wife, family, and Cornell. Mahoney described “getting things right the second time” as a collaborative effort between himself and this support system, as well as everyone he’s worked closely with since starting this new journey. He isn’t trying to be the one person that is unilaterally running everything.
Pictured: Nicolaj “Jensen” Jensen wearing an LCS Spring Finals championship cap produced by We Are Nations (Photo by Colin Young-Wolff/Riot Games)
“I’m no longer the smartest guy in the room, and I’m totally fine with that,” he said. “There are people around me, and there have always been since the day we started this, who are handling essential functions better than I ever could—and I would assume vice versa. But it’s never been my show, in reality. I guess I do the most interviews and do the panels, but I wouldn’t be able to do that if there weren’t people here plugging away. That, to me, is the absolute biggest difference. I have a safety net and I have a support network, and I have some really smart people around me.”
Like a lot of companies throughout the esports industry, Mahoney said that the team at We Are Nations is still constantly learning as it establishes norms and best practices. But even though he compares esports to the “Wild West” at present, he’s thrilled to have another opportunity to help pioneer a segment of a burgeoning entertainment industry.
“When I got into the music side, music had been around and it was an established business, but the punk rock thing was very disruptive at that time,” he said. “This is disruption again in sports, and I feel extremely lucky to get to do this twice.”
Editor’s note: Interview conducted by Trent Murray.
