Nick’s Blog

            “Looks to the inside, contact! TIMMY HILL… gets his 674^th iRacing win!” That was the voice of Nascar on Fox play-by-play commentator Mike Joy who was commentating an eNASCAR iRacing Pro Invitation race with his partner, Jeff Gordon last Sunday. This was the second week that Nascar has participated in this. All of the contestants in these races are all current and former pro Nascar drivers. Some of the notable names include Chase Elliot, Jimmy Johnson, and Dale Earnhardt Jr.

            The telecast set an esports record, drawing 1.3 million viewers. This broke the record that was set the previous week which drew over 910,000 viewers. And, to compare this Fox televised event to other shows that were aired on TV this last week, the eNASCAR iRacing event was the second most viewed show, only behind WWE Friday Night Smackdown.  Each driver was driving in the comfort of their own home, drivers having a fully functioned steering wheel to use, rather than a controller. Some drivers went well and beyond, having chairs that moved around as they turned their wheel, similar to being in an arcade booth. Like I mentioned earlier, the race was being conducted through iRacing, which is a fully dedicated virtual simulator of a Nascar race. It feels so much like an actual race that the wind, tire ware, traction on the tracks, and plenty more all factor into the race! The racetracks are also updated each year to the exact dimensions that they would be in real life.

            What does this mean for esports? As COVID-19 continues to put a halt to our beloved sports, could we see more professional sports leagues participating in something similar to this? The answer to that is yes. NBA 2K will be conducting a “Players-Only” 1on1 tournament that will air starting Friday on ESPN. This will take place over 10 days with 16 current NBA players competing against one another. Some notable players who will be competing are Kevin Durant, Donovan Mitchell, and Trae Young.

            As we continue to fight this pandemic, watching sports, more specifically esports, can give our minds a break from the Coronavirus. Personally, I am a sports enthusiast who also has a passion for video games. I think this is truly something special that could potentially reshape how we view esports and watch sports on TV in the future.   

The world of social media… A place where people can do good and do bad. This industry has made careers for some, it has also ended some. Over the last couple of months, a few friends and I have built a brand on multiple social media fronts, utilizing Twitter, YouTube, and Twitch as our three dominant platforms.

My friends and I have always had a passion for gaming. Some of our fondest memories come from playing online together. This past summer, as we were driving home from an up-north trip, I brought up, “what if we started streaming the games we play together to the rest of the world?” My two other friends in the car paused to think. After discussing it for the rest of the trip home, we all came to a conclusion to give it a try.

Twitch, known for being a live-streaming site, was where we decided to begin our journey. We quickly came to learn that we had a niche in a heavily saturated market. We would set ourselves alone by becoming one of the few channels to have three people featured on every broadcast. Since we started streaming in November, our channel has produced a profit of roughly $200.  

After the first couple months of streaming on Twitch, we knew there had to be another way of spreading our brand. YouTube would be the answer to that. However, instead of just focusing on gaming videos on this platform, we decided to take a risk on videos centered around our personalities. Luckily, that has paid off. Most of the ideas that go into our videos revolve around performing various challenges. An example of this was when we ate extremely hot wings. Despite only using YouTube for roughly the last month, our channel has reached nearly 50 subscribers, with most of our videos gaining over 100 views.

Tied into both of these platforms is our Twitter account. We feel Twitter is as important as the rest of the services. This application is used to speak to our audience and notify them when we are coming out with a video or are about to start a live broadcast. Social media is one of the greatest creations yet; however, there is a great responsibility when using it. We understand that as we continue to entertain the online world!

Welcome to my first blog post! My name is Nick Mirasola and I’m currently a junior at Concordia University Wisconsin, majoring in Business Marketing. I always knew I’d be going into business someday. Back in high school, I took a marketing course where I felt I excelled in. This was where I discovered how important and also creative marketing can be. I knew this was something I could pursue someday. Last month, I was lucky enough to visit a marketing agency where I job shadowed a couple of their employees for the day. I visited Rocket Clicks, a company based in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin. While there, I learned about pay per click and search engine optimization. PPC is the willingness of a company to pay search engine corporations like Google to have their site have instant web relevancy. If you search something on Google, the first few websites at the top will list the word “Ad” in bold text next to the site. These companies are using the PPC method in order to appear higher in searches. Search engine optimization is another tool companies utilize. SEO focuses on organic search results. In order to have traffic on a site, SEO specialists focus on the relevancy of the site and user experience. Integrating keywords into the site will provide for more relevancy. Additionally, having an up-to-date website that has solid page speeds will reduce customers from clicking off your site. The key difference between the two marketing strategies is that SEO provides for organic search results while PPC pays for instant results. One tool that both of these methods use is Google Analytics. This device allows companies to get more out of advertising and also have displayed graphical results for what is or is not working. Google Analytics is also deemed controversial, since Google has lots of data on you. This may seem creepy, but for businesses, it’s amazing. For example, let’s say you google “car dealerships near me.” After doing that, you may notice local car dealership ads popping up in your social media feeds. This is because companies are spending an abundance of capital in order to reach customers and compete with the rest of the competition. Regardless of what you may think, PPC and SEO is a necessity for businesses to reach customers online and I hope to someday be helping a business with this!