Level Up! Gaming and Esports Trends in 2021

In Partnership with Voices of Wall Street

As live sport events screeched to a halt due to COVID-19, television networks scrambled to fill their programming gaps. Enter gaming and esports companies like Activision Blizzard, Newzoo, and Electronic Arts.

Esports is, at its core, competitive video gaming. And while competitive video gaming has been around for some time now, the rise of live-streaming platforms such as Twitch and Youtube helped esports grow into a billion-dollar industry by the late 2010s. In 2018, more people watched Riot Game’s League of Legends World Championship than that year’s Super Bowl. The prize for the 2020 Dota 2 international tournament was over $40 million. These trends are projected to continue into 2021 and even post-pandemic life.

Public.com is teaming up with Voices of Wall Street to invite several gaming and esports experts to share their insights on where they see their industry going and answer questions in a live Q&A session.

This session is the first of our theme-based virtual event series. You can explore more themes on the Public Themes page.

*Just a talk. Not investment advice. See Public.com/disclosures/.

Speakers

Ann Hand

Ann Hand is Chairman and CEO of Super League Gaming.

Nicholas Grous

Nicholas Grous is an analyst on the Next-generation Internet strategy at ARK Invest, he has been with the firm for 2.5 years. Nicholas focuses on social media, streaming, and online gaming.

Jeff Cohen

Jeff Cohen is VP of Strategy and Head of Investor Relations at Esports Entertainment Group. Prior to EEG Jeff was an analyst at Stephens Inc, a leading Wall Street investment bank, covering the gaming and esports sectors. Cohen has a Bachelor’s in Government from Harvard University and an MBA in Finance and Accounting from Columbia Business School.

Hope King

Hope King is a Business Reporter with Axios.Hope was most recently an anchor with Cheddar, where she spent almost four years. From her chair on the floor of theNewYork Stock Exchange, she anchored and co-hosted three business news shows. Prior to Cheddar, Hope was a CNN reporter covering the business of technology. Throughout her career, Hope has reported from around the country and from China. She has interviewed top business leaders including Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Alibaba founder Jack Ma, Apple VP Lisa Jackson, and Lockheed Martin VP Kay Sears.

Hope started her career at Merrill Lynch, where she was a Vice President of Business Development and Product Management for a $200 billion investment management platform.

Talk Partner: Voices of Wall Street

Voices of Wall Street is a video-first financial media company focused on stock news, industry trends, and insights from the sharpest minds on Wall Street and in business. The company believes everyone should have access to quality financial information, not just hedge funds and investment managers. VoWS has interviewed industry experts and executives from innovative publicly traded companies including fuboTV, Lemonade, General Motors, Jumia, Fisker, Desktop Metal, and more.