Over the last 3 years, you've become deeply ingrained in the fabric of SEAT. With now being a member of the executive advisory board. You've been on steering committee members. How would you say that SEAT has helped your career?
So my first SEAT was San Francisco in 2015. I remember walking in not knowing one person in this room of 600 and I think I was one of maybe three people from the UK that came that summer.
When I walked into my first SEAT conference in 2015, I was thinking to myself,.... "Right well this is a real opportunity. You know, soak it up, take it all in. Speak to people. Just put yourself out there."
I'm not the most shy person. I'm not the biggest extrovert, but I had to really put myself out there though. For me the real value and what makes it completely different to anything else or any of those other conferences I go to is it's always been about meeting like-minded individuals and sharing those challenges and opportunities.
It's not like another conference where you have people talking at you. You know it's a real opportunity to engage with them.
I can point back to Atlanta last summer. We sat down with some MLS execs and execs from around the league over dinner, and kicking around some concepts of esports leagues with FIFA and what others had been doing, and then a couple of months later comes the announcement.
SEAT really sparks conversations that create change in this industry.
What is a day in the life of Tom Halls at Gfinity?
TOM HALLS INTERVIEW
I'm going to sound really cliched here; there isn't a typical day in that sense.
In much the same way as a pro sports league, we have pre season, we have in season, we have post season.
On the day to day basis I'm responsible for the overall running of path-to-pro competition, the Gfinity Elite Series, and the Franchises involved in that.
So essentially in all sense of the word I'm kind of the Roger Goodall (laughs)... I'm not going to compare myself to Roger Goodall. I'm certainly not paid as much as Roger Goodall. It's essentially that kind of commissioner role in that sense.
So we're in pre season at the moment, getting ready to go live in early March with a TV show out of our custom-built studio in London. So a usual day is full of meetings with events, marketing, franchise, production teams. Ensuring we're all working towards our objectives and getting the show live. It could be anything from checking broadcast graphics, or sponsor integration, through to ensuring that a team have submitted their roster for that week and our sponsor logos are displayed correctly on their jerseys.
This season has been a bit more challenging because we're also announcing a number of new teams. That element of the role, you know I'm constantly in contract negotiation , pitching and coordinating announcement of those teams and they're not just traditional esports teams.
We speak to big sports brands around Europe and North America that want to have a presence.
Once we get into season I will spend most of my time on site. It's a long, 14 hour day, onsite from 8:30am until around 11pm, on your feet the entire time.
It's great fun, it's very dynamic. At the end of the day, it is video games. So it's incredibly rewarding to see fans, teams, players enjoying themselves the same as you do in pro sport.
Outside of season I've been heavily involved in our international developments. We launch in Australia in March, we’re bringing more events to Europe and there’s a lot of progressive discussions with brands and teams in North and South America.
A lot of late night, early morning calls with Australia and North America; I'm really lucky to have such an understanding wife that is incredibly supportive of what I do.
88