The rare way in which New York Red Bulls is making millions in esports

The New York Red Bulls are making millions. That shouldn't be surprising knowing that the NYRB is one of the most popular franchises on the MLS. The New York Red Bulls are crashing it on esports. That also shouldn't surprise anyone as the NYRB have just won the eMLS Championship cup with gamer George Amadou in command. But there's a third reason how the Newyorkers are making millions with video games.

It happens that their strategy is different to the rest of the league's team. When the eMLS league was founded, on 2018, the Red Bulls hired Mike LaBelle, a Twitch star, as their player for the league. LaBelle also was in charged of creating gaming content for the Red Bulls to share on social media.

LaBelle is great at creating content, but wasn't good enough as gamer, and so he ended at the bottom of the eMLS in 2018. In 2019, the club took a radical decision: they would have two FIFA players, in different roles. So they hired George Amadou, one of the best FIFA players in the world.

Red Bulls fans loved the content LaBelle creates. At the same time, Amadou has just won the eMLS and the Red Bulls are one of the teams with more viewers every time they play. The trick is that no other MLS team has two gamers working for them. They should, as the NYRB's case shows. The New York side is making millions out of the esports.