José R. Díaz, owner of Giants Gaming: "We will continue to fight to return to the LCS as soon as possible"

José Ramón Díaz is possibly one of the most important entrepreneurs in the esports industry in Spain. He is the owner of Giants Gaming, an esports club based in Malaga with national and international presence. He is also founder and CEO of Ozone, a multinational manufacturer of gaming products.

Shafi: Giants managed to defeat Origen, but was defeated in the second round of the EU LCS Promotion Tournament, what are your feelings about the Giants' descent into the Challenger Series?

Shafi: Internationally, What are your expectations for the future of Giants Gaming?

José: If something characterizes us is that we are a fighter and a winner team, mainly at the national level, and internationally that is what we want to achieve, to grow more and more. There is no doubt that we will continue fighting to return to the LCS as soon as possible, we know that it is very complicated, we know that there are very strong teams and especially with a lot of investment. But that is our attitude, we only think about winning and comming back to compete at the international level.

Giants Gaming is not only a team of League of Legends in the LCS, we compete in more titles,. Our Call of Duty team is an international team too, with the CS:GO squad we also want to grow, logically trying to differentiate us from the rest at the national level and continuing to aspire to the maximum international level.

Shafi: Following the line of international presence, what is your perspective regarding the future of the Counter Strike team?

José: Recently we have signed players from the CS:GO eu4ia team and we always aspire to go as high as we can, but we are realistic, we know that the international scene of CS:GO is very competitive. Our first aspiration with this team is to get a top 1 or 2 at the national level, dominating as much as possible the Spanish scene of Counter Strike and I guess the rest will come, we do not set ourselves a very ambitious goal because we know how complicated it is to access to the international scene.

Shafi: Returning to the recently descended League of Legends team. Most players still have a contract with the club, will they stay on the team?

José: it's something that is being discussed these days and soon there will be news. The players, as you have said, still have a contract with the club. We are already talking to some of the players, in the end we will have to come to an agreement and seek the best solution for both parties. We want to have the most competitive team, which allows us to access the LCS as soon as possible.

Shafi: Economically speaking, is it a hard hit for the club infrastructure to descend from the LCS?

José: Not for us. For example, in Europe we differ a lot from the United States, which is such a big country that all the brands that invest money in the esports, whether they are sponsors in a competition or investors in clubs, they focus on a single competition, in a single country. However, the economic resources that we have from our sponsors come from Spain, is focused on the Spanish market, so those resources are not really given to me for the LCS, to them what happens in Germany is off their interest because their sales are in Spain.

Economically speaking, for Giants the LCS was a fairly significant burden, because we were losing money in the LCS. The salaries of the players were very high, the staff, the gaming house ... etc. And the subsidy provided by Riot does not cover these salaries at all.

At a sporting, competitive or reputational level, there is an important loss. It is a differential factor, we were in the international scene, among the top ten teams and in this case, yes, that is a major loss.

Shafi: Speaking of investment, in a sports club, what are the expenses?

José: In the example of Giants, it is in the whole staff who works for the club, our department of marketing, communication, audiovisual, sports management ... etc. The salaries of the players are getting higher, also the salaries of the technical staff as managers or coaches.

In our case, nationally we have all our company located in Malaga, the Gaming House too. Logically we have to cover the travel expenses, diets, we have a personal chef who cooks for our players, cleaning staff ... There are many infrastructure costs.

Then there is the investment that is made in marketing, communication, branding, merchandising, we are really very similar to any sports entity. To give you an idea, only in salaries, the budget of Giants Gaming this year exceeds 600,000 euros. To this day, very few teams equal the structure that we have at the national level.

Shafi: Recently, Carlos "Ocelote" Rodríguez told me that a League of Legends top 10 team in the Superliga Orange - the Spanish League of Legends league - could cost between ? 70,000 and ? 80,000 a year.

José: And easily 100,000 euros. Depends on the salaries you pay, the infrastructure you have ... etc. We have a wide staff of League of Legends, many people contracted, plus the investment you make in your departments.

Shafi: Are the profits that a team of esports produce enough?

José: To this day we are quite modest. What I can tell you is that it allows us to pay the bills and, seeing the budget we have, that is not bad. But this is growing and the esports are undoubtedly the future, we are seeing how companies and brands are entering this sector.