Hosting a phygital tournament is both a challenge and an opportunity. Bringing a new sporting concept to life requires careful planning, educating competitors and fans and securing venues that can seamlessly blend esports and traditional sports. While it’s not without its hurdles, the effort is well worth it, paving the way for an exciting and innovative sporting experience.
Each successful phygital event hosted by World Phygital Community (WPC) members adds to the pool of knowledge and experience that can help to deliver the next one. One of our top WPC phygital club leaders Rodolfo Flores Mendez, President at Phygital Sports USA Inc., has kindly taken the time to share that experience from recently hosting the GOTF Majors across four key phygital disciplines in New York City, USA.
Next-gen competition
The big thing about an evolving sport is that almost everything is new. Athletes and audiences alike do not fit traditional models. It makes for exciting, fast-paced development as a new generation of competitors and fans emerges, erasing the old barriers between physical and digital sports.
“The US tournaments proved that some of the best-performing teams are built around hybrid athletes who excel in both esports and traditional sports”, Rodolfo said. “Teams that went to an extreme – either fully digital or fully physical – tended to struggle.”
In addition, phygital has the benefit of attracting athletes and gamers from across not only a broad age spectrum but sporting and gaming interests too.
“Athlete pipelines vary from upcoming youngsters to former pros”, Rodolfo continues; “In contrast with mainstream sport, phygital is not only about physical strength but also about digital skills and overall strategy. This gives more balanced and diverse teams. From the audience perspective, phygital tournaments capture fans from both the esports and the mainstream realm. Many people are hybrid athletes and fans, no one really lives in the extremes.”
Get the set-up right
Because phygital brings a unique combination of traditional and digital competition, finding the right venue is more complicated than usual. It’s not enough to supply the right tech or provide a suitable playing field; these events need both to be at the highest standard. That means fast, reliable internet as well as good quality locker rooms and warm-up areas. The whole event must be in accordance with WPC rules.
“For Phygital Shooter, the specialized equipment for the digital gameplay element as well as the physical stage set up posed considerable logistical challenges”, said Rodolfo. “Tactical Laser Tag equipment is not cheap to rent or acquire, and operating it requires considerable expertise. The same goes for having 10 or 20 operational gaming PCs. Our vendors/partners at NYC’s Bullseye Laser Tag and BrookLAN Gaming house were key to operating the event. Without their years of experience on the field, it would have been impossible.”
The more “traditional” sports – basketball and soccer – were a bit easier to manage.
“That set-up was relatively simple, but still a bit more complex than just a physical tournament”, Rodolfo added. “We used two Ps5, two TVs and about 12 controllers, it wasn’t as complex as Phygital Shooter, these tournaments can run with less sophisticated equipment and human capital, but don’t underestimate them, they are challenging too!”
Specialized knowledge isn’t just for the organizers. Rodolfo advises taking time to explain the format to everyone – competitors, officials and spectators, in detail: “This is very new. People are unfamiliar, they have many questions. Educating everyone in advance is key to ensure that the tournament runs smoothly.”
Spreading the word
Logistics for a new event can be tricky. Potential competitors need a venue that is accessible and well-connected, ideally at the heart of an existing sporting community. For the GOTF Majors in USA, New York City was an obvious choice.
But the location is just the start. Organizers have to get the word out and just as the phygital disciplines fuse contemporary and traditional, so does its comms strategy. Phygital Sports USA Inc., worked closely with influencers and social media – particularly Discord channels for Phygital Dancing and Phygital Shooter. But there was also plenty of room for old-school networking and “an insane amount of cold calling and emails” to bring the athletes to the competition.
In the end the blended strategy of good old-fashioned networking, and a robust influencer relations plan paid off, and delivered events that brought phygital to its fans as well as a new and wider audience.
“Alongside our networking and calls, working with social media and influencers really helped”, Rodolfo said. “We started gaining traction one or two weeks prior to the event. Coverage of the event in podcasts and with influencers re-posting our content definitely helped a lot.”
Key lessons
After staging a successful event, Rodolfo and his team quickly understood the need to focus on high-quality, fair competition – with the flexibility to handle the unexpected.
“Focus on the athletes”, Rodolfo advised. “They are the most important stakeholders. Invest in high quality, certified referees, even if expensive. The same for medical care, on-site paramedics. Also, budget time for controversies, appeals, etc. These can take a lot of time but if you have enough of a buffer you can ensure a fair tournament that still runs to schedule.”
But perhaps the final words sum it up. Rodolfo’s top takeaways: “Keep it real, keep it simple.”, and perhaps most important of all: “Don’t give up! This is hard, but not impossible. It takes effort and courage from all of us to bring phygital to the next level globally.”
