Episode #2: Ryan Johnson
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Co-Founder and CEO of Cxmmunity Media Ryan Johnson joins us to discuss how his company is fostering diversity and equity in eSports gaming and media. Through initiatives like the HBCU eSports League, Big Creator, and his nonprofit Gaming Community Co., Ryan and his team have found great success in creating more opportunities for young people to discover a passion for eSports.
Notes
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Dyani Marvel: Thank You for joining us with Level Up with Wondr. I'm Dyani Marvel. I am the Vice President of Marketing Strategy and operations at Wondr Nation, and today we are speaking with Ryan Johnson and we'll be talking about diversity and gaming in eSports.
We're excited to have Ryan, he is the founder of CX Media. CX Media is a collaborative team of Innovative thinkers and doers dedicated to future-proofing diversity and equity in gaming and media. The people at CX Media are responsible for initiatives such as the HBCU eSports League, The Kickback, Big Creator, and Gaming Community co, which is their nonprofit. So thank you so much, Ryan for joining us today
Ryan Johnson: Absolutely, and, and it is perfectly fine. We, we just go by Community Media or CXM.
Dyani Marvel: CXM. Awesome, awesome, awesome.
So let's start with talking about you. I know a lot about you, you're an amazing person. So tell our listeners about you, your background, and how you got into eSports.
Ryan Johnson: I would say my journey into gaming started probably back in 2018, but even to kind of take a step back, in 2015 when I finished college, my degree, ironically enough, was actually in physical therapy. But right when I got out of school, I decided I didn't want to be, in the health profession it's just not something I wanted to do.
So I ended up getting into technology sales, back in 2015 and through that opportunity, it actually relocated me from Maryland to Atlanta, Georgia. I stayed in technology, sales, technology consulting, about three years. Towards the end of 2018, I actually left corporate America to go back to graduate school full time at Georgia State to get my master's in sports administration because I always wanted to figure out ways to link the worlds between technology and sports.
I played sports my whole life, high school, college, basketball, the whole nine. So I really wanted to figure out a way to just stay relevant in things that I were passionate about.
Through the program at Georgia State is when I actually learned about gaming into eSports, as a profession versus just like a pastime and a hobby. And I learned the statistic, maybe back in 2019 that nearly 83% of black youth played video games on a weekly basis, but only 2% at the time worked full time in the gaming industry.
I found that very true even for myself because I grew up playing video games and it wasn't until I got into graduate school that I even learned anything about the video game industry and kind of what made up that entire space.
So shortly, coming out of graduate school is when we started our first initiative, which was actually was Gaming Community Co our nonprofit back in January of 2020, and that purely came out of the interest of learning about the statistic of 83% to 2%, then also living in Atlanta, of course the pandemic happened in March.
We learned that there were not enough devices for all of the students and that a number of students did not have the opportunity to actually graduate either from eighth grade into high school or from high school to go into college simply due to lack of access.
So that was actually like our first start in the gaming was launching a charity live stream back in May of 2020 where we raised about $118,000 to buy devices, laptops, mobile wifi devices for students in Atlanta so they could actually participate in distance learning.
So that was super, super early on, but kind of to fast forward between 20 20 and then the middle of 2021 when we started Community media. The purpose or why we launched a for-profit, and we still do have our nonprofit organization to date, a lot of our partners that we were in conversations with were really asking us about more marketing related questions about how their brands can connect with audiences, how we could put them in front of influencers to stay relevant with Gen Z. We did not want to take on those type of projects under a nonprofit because it was outside the scope of what our nonprofit was created for.
So that was that the actual birth of community media was really to then service, in a non, I would say, convoluted way, some of these other asks that our corporate partners in relationships that we were developing were beginning to bring our way.
Dyani Marvel: Awesome. Well, that's an amazing path. Amazing. Amazing. So let's go, right into talking about the HBCU eSports League 'because I find that to be, you know, super interesting and like you said, a great way to bring more diversity into eSports.
Ryan Johnson: Yeah, no for sure. So HBCU eSports League, I would say, is definitely what put community media, CXM, on the map.
Essentially, you know, for those that may be unfamiliar, I would say from an analogy standpoint, think of HBCU eSports League no different than you think of college football, college basketball, the NBA or NFL.
We are a 22 week long collegiate video game league, where we have about 40 different universities that compete in games like NBA 2K, Madden, Call of Duty, Fortnite, and these students are competing for prize pools, which are really massed as scholarships in the spaces of gaming.
So, so far we're in our, our fourth season of the HBCU eSports league, we've been doing this in partnership with Amazon Media and Twitch since we've started.
We've reached over 50 million live viewers through our platforms in the last few years, which has allowed us to work with some really cool brands.
So currently, again, just like traditional sports, our partners are Verizon, Discover, Nike, Hot Pockets, and Mountain Dew. And again, the same way that they invest in us, same expectations that they have from traditional sports, is kind of what we're engaged on for success as well.
I think the thing that we're most excited about with the HBCU eSports League is that to date we've provided over $1.7 million worth of scholarships to students in our league.
So that in reverse means that, you know, we have students that have earned over a hundred thousand dollars just by participating in this gaming league over the past few years.
At the foundation, that's what HBCU eSports League was, and really the idea for starting it was going back to my early statistic of 83% of black youth play video games, but only 2% were working in the industry. A lot of that had to do with, again, access to products, but also the types of games that were being played in other collegiate leagues that were not as focused on diversity or needed more support and getting into the space of gaming.
So that's why for us, you know, we've just been very, very excited of what has come of it, the amount of support that we get, and honestly, just looking forward to the second half of our fourth season, which is actually starting in the next two or three weeks.
Dyani Marvel: So, when does your season start and when does it end?
Ryan Johnson: Every year it begins in September and it ends in April. So we do typically 11 to 12 broadcasts in the fall, which is like our fall split and then we do 11 or 12 in the spring, which is our spring split, and the championship happens every April.
Dyani Marvel: So folks can catch you on Twitch. Is that where the, best place to view the contest?
Ryan Johnson: Yep. Yep. So the best place to view the live content would be on literally Twitch.Tv, you know, forward or backslash community.
But for people to stay up to date, you know, we definitely have like our email newsletters, we have our social media platforms is where we're actually talking about the league throughout the week, and then of course, the big broadcast happens every given Sunday yes.
Dyani Marvel: All right, so if we have a listener that is attending an HBCU that's not part of the HBCU eSports League, but they're interested, what should they do?
Ryan Johnson: They should go on the campus that they're in, identify kind of like who is the captain or the, kind of like the program lead for the eSports club or the eSports varsity team.
And they would be a part of that club the way that they would join any other club on that said campus. So we get involved on the campus level just by making sure that faculty administration, they're up to date, they have the schedule, different roles, responsibilities that we need of the universities, but we actually don't dictate the various players and how they show up at the universities themselves.
Dyani Marvel: Awesome. Awesome. Now, one thing that I know we talked about, there was this kind of big difference between a lot of players that you see that are African American and then maybe what you see in more traditional eSports in terms of how they play the game. Can you talk a little bit about that with our, for our listeners?
Ryan Johnson: Sure. So, I wouldn't, it is not necessarily much about how they play the game, but sometimes what is used to play the game. So, a lot, generally speaking, I guess even going back to why HBCU eSports had a place, it's when we looked at... well, lemme take a step back.
In 2020, there were over 250 predominantly white institutions or colleges and universities that had eSports or gaming on their campuses. At the same time, there were zero HBCUs that had gaming or eSports at their campuses. A lot of this boiled down to titles that were played in these various leagues, a lot of non diverse or non-diverse led leagues lean a lot on PC games. And very generally speaking, black, latin, community, we don't play computer games we play more so console, so that's why when we launched HBCU eSports, that was a really big focus of ours was making sure that we're launching with titles that are familiar to our community just to make, again, that barrier of entry one less degree more challenging to get into the space for the first time.
Now, once we got our first amount of universities onboarded in the league, we have been working with a lot of our corporate partners to build out computer labs or traditional eSports and gaming labs. So these universities do have some of the similar technology that you'll see across the board. But even still, what we find to be true, even still for myself, we may play on a computer from a performance standpoint, but we'll still use a controller versus mouse and keyboard.
So don't get me wrong, that's not a generalized statement, but when you're talking about the great majority, that is one of the major differences literally mouse and keyboard versus controller. So that's when we started to observe some of those, we were like, let's be sure we're just hyper intentional about how we set up the format and structure of our league to make it as easy as possible for people to participate.
Dyani Marvel: Yeah. I love that because I, to me, I feel like that is the true definition of inclusion and you know, really bringing an equity into the industry is to make sure, regardless of how people are accessing it, that you provide opportunities for everyone to participate. And it's not gate kept because of something like a pc, which are very expensive, right? So it makes sense that that is one of the pieces that is going to keep that demographic, you know, very specific. So I, I love the fact that you guys have been able to do that there.
All right, so let's jump into Big Creator. 'cause I know that when you, you know, told us about that, it was something I was really excited about. So tell our listeners what is Big Creator and how that came about and, and where it's going.
Ryan Johnson: Yeah. Yeah. So Big Creator was an idea that actually came from one of our first employees, our creative director, Karima. When you're talking about gaming, just digital creators at large, everyone's focused, of course, right, on scale, the large creators that reach the masses. The idea of Big Creator is actually the inverse.
A funny story is like, you know, a lot of people know the hip hop artist, Big Sean, people don't know he got his name because he was the smaller Sean of this other Sean pair that they knew so they used to call him Big Sean to kind of make up for him being the smaller version.
So for us, like, there wasn't a direct correlation initially, but we talked about it. Big Creator is that version for us is where we are highlighting smaller creators and masses to bring them larger opportunities within the gaming space that otherwise sometimes are overlooked.
So when we started the program, we literally maybe had 40 or 50 creators that joined, just as of maybe like a week or two ago, we just crossed over 800, creators within this network.
So you're talking about, diverse creators that may be on PC console, that may love anime, they may love virtual reality. There's really no auspice or like no guardrails on what your creativity is, but Big Creator is a community now where we're bringing all these folks together one to give them a, a unified voice, to say like, "hey, we are here," but then second to that, they're some of our biggest supporters, our biggest fans, the ones that are always at our in-person events, the ones that always show up in our virtual streams for support. It's really just a community building tool that we're, you know, really using to amplify and galvanize this whole holistic space of black gamers and creators.
Dyani Marvel: So all of these, creators that are on Big Creator, they are all gamers and and they all like stream, via twitch, et cetera, is that what they primarily do?
Ryan Johnson: Yeah, they're all streamers. They, again, they may be gamers, some may be within Twitch, you know, you have like just chatting. Some of them may be, again, just chatting enthusiasts where they're doing like live podcasts.
That's why we say we're not really as worried about what your creativity is or what your focus is but as long as you're creating content, as long as you're streaming. The requirement though, in order to get in, you have to be under 50 concurrent streamers, and then the purpose of the program is to help that number grow over time. So within Big Creator, there are various tiers, so once you cross over, 50 streamers or concurrent viewers, you then move on to tier two and then so on and so forth.
So the whole idea is to help people mature and develop within their own streaming and content creation process.
Dyani Marvel: That's awesome. So what are some of the kinda early successes you've seen with Big Creator?
Ryan Johnson: One of our first major successes in Atlanta, we have this really big anime conference every year, called MomoCon.
So one of the things we started to do is, we rent out like Airbnbs and we turn them into like Big Creator houses during these type weekends where we'll then like have all the creators stay in the house, they'll create content.
We've seen a lot of, you know, some smaller to mid-level viral success come out of that like very early on. I'll also say though, the biggest piece that I'm excited about is we're leaning into this year, how we're gonna be leveraging the Big Creator community not only digitally, but physically, because this year we're gonna be doing, probably two or three times as many in-person events as we have historically.
So I think a lot of the success kind of what we'll see, you know, yet to come.
Dyani Marvel: Awesome. So if there's some creators listening here and they're interested in, in participating with Big Creator, what should they do?
Ryan Johnson: Mainly right now either go to the Cxmmunity Twitter or Instagram, and we have various links on our pages about how to sign up, how to join. That information then kind of goes internally to our community and marketing team, and then creators are then reached out to if they meet the various qualifications that are outlined in that application process.
Dyani Marvel: Awesome. Awesome. So now let's talk about The Kickback. What is The Kickback, how did you get started, and you know, what's going on with it now?
Ryan Johnson: It got started... we actually met a few business, now business partners, out of California a few years ago. So we came together to make this joint venture, which is The Kickback.
I guess kind of to separate The Kickback from HBCU eSports League, HBCU eSports is focused primarily on eSports competition, specifically around HBCU students, right? Also a big factor is that HBCU eSports is 95% of virtual property so we, we very rarely come together in person under that banner. The Kickback is different, where The Kickback is focused on culture and lifestyle and it is a one day all day in person event that is also livestreamed via Twitch.
So the way The Kickback is structured is that you can think it's broken down into three parts. In the morning we bring in students, high school and college students, and they go through a series of panels and workshops, about careers in gaming, entertainment. 'cause again, we, the students we work with, they all wanna be artists, content creators, streamers, but very rarely are they thinking about some of the other careers like managers, lawyers, live event production, [00:16:00] marketing, the whole nine. So we really used the morning part of The Kickback to introduce career opportunities within this space to highschool and college students.
In the middle of the day we always do, like a gaming tournament. This past event we did in October, it was like a $5,000 NBA 2K tournament, and then at night we conclude The Kickback with a livestream concert of like a popular hip hop artist who this past time, it was NLE Choppa. It was a really, really fun, event.
But just like HBCU eSports, we support The Kickback through advertisements and various brand sponsors. So, we were very fortunate this past event where we had Spotify, Amazon Games, Microsoft, and Rap Snacks, were like our official event partners to help bring this event to life.
I'm excited about The Kickback this year because essentially we're planning to do three of these events starting from Q2, Q3, and Q4. We're literally going through the process right now of like picking out the cities and like artists that we're gonna be doing, so we're really excited for, what's gonna be happening. So the way that our calendar as a organization's going to look is essentially we have HBCU eSports that runs essentially half of the year for, you know, from September until April. We then have kickbacks sprinkled in there as like other touchpoints, you know, once a quarter.
Then, we use Big Creator as a way to kind of continuously tell this story throughout the entire year, to make these moments start to, you know, become a little bit larger than what they are from a virtual and digital standpoint.
Dyani Marvel: Awesome. So where was the last kickback? What, city?
Ryan Johnson: The past two kickbacks that ,we've done have both been in Atlanta.
So we're still very focused on, you know, states in the South, states that are also home to, you know, heavy HBCU culture. The Kickback is not an HBCU focused property, you know, but by the nature of the work that we do, of course they're always included. So this year we're, we're looking at cities like, Atlanta, Charlotte, Washington DC, and Houston. So those are like our four main cities that we're kind of exploring right now.
Dyani Marvel: Awesome. So if people are interested in attending The Kickback or learning where it is, can they find that information on your website? Like how do they stay up to date on when The Kickbacks are gonna be scheduled and where they're gonna be?
Ryan Johnson: Yeah, no. I would definitely say same things. Our socials, our newsletters, our Discord server. That's how we communicate with everyone about our streams, our in-person events, virtual events, it's all done through our social media and our newsletters and to get to our newsletter and all other various links it's done through our social media.
Of course we have our website, but you know, the social's just a little bit more engaging and it tells a, probably a more holistic story of where things are and what's coming up in the near future.
Dyani Marvel: Got it. So follow them on social media. Alrighty, and now let's talk about your nonprofit arm. So tell us about that.
Ryan Johnson: Yeah. So as I kind of alluded to in the beginning, the nonprofit is actually what got this whole thing started for us. Back in January, 2020, the idea before all these large scale events was simple. We wanted to increase minority representation in the eSports and video game industry. So nonprofit to date is grown beyond, you know, my wildest imagination.
What we ended up making a decision is that back in 2021, I actually stepped down as the executive director of the nonprofit to again, avoid any type of, you know, commingling assumptions. You know, one of the things we're always very mindful of is that our co-founders, we're 30 and younger, right?
We're black men doing cool stuff with large brands generating revenue, and we wanted to strip any opportunity for people to kind of undermine that or paint a picture of something that wasn't true. So we resigned, literally resigned from my own organization, which was crazy.
So now we actually sit on the board of the nonprofit and we have executive directors and other folks that lead the day-to-Day operations of that. So what's really cool now is our two largest partners within the nonprofit are Microsoft and Comcast. As an example, under our Comcast relationship under GCC or Gaming Community Co, we have a national relationship with the Boys and Girls Club.
Our nonprofit team is very often in Philadelphia, where we do like after school weekend programs, teaching young students about coding career opportunities within gaming. So the purpose of our nonprofit is pure play education, they work with other nonprofit groups, city groups.
An example, a great relationship we have there also is with the City of Atlanta, the mayor's office. The Atlanta Mayor, Andre Dickens, last year in 2023, one of his big campaigns was called Year of the Youth. And Year of the Youth was designed, or one of the pillars of Year of the youth, was gaming and that was designed to, to use gaming to keep young students off the street to increase their interest in technology and we are one of the core partners to bring that element to life for the mayor's office.
So like our nonprofit is doing more of those community driven, no pun intended, community driven type work, and then our media company, we're really coming in and we're creating these large scale properties that bring in awareness and eyeballs to this holistic community of like, what's actually happening for people of color within this gaming industry. It is really exciting just to see the type of work that we've been able to do collectively across both organizations and then the times where we can support one another.
So as an example, right, Community Media owns The Kickback, the Kickback works with major corporate sponsors and entertainers to create these properties. Our non-profit partner brings in the students to The Kickback, to then be educated to have that touch point, and then once The Kickback goes away, the nonprofit is the one that stays engaged with our teachers, our students, to make sure that that learning is continuously going on, and then everyone gets to celebrate at the next kickback and then it's that continuous cycle, so on and so forth.
Our goal is, because we're primarily focused on inner-city schools, especially like in Atlanta, is that, you know, a lot of students in Atlanta also go to HBCUs, so we want to make sure that these young students now know that there's an aspirational goal that, "Hey, mom and dad, I can literally join the Morehouse gaming team and I can earn scholarships. And you said I couldn't do that," that's now a reality. So that's how our organizations kind of support one another and what we're looking to do to continue growing and, you know, building this whole thing out.
Dyani Marvel: Yeah, I love how this whole ecosystem works together so well and, really feeds each other for success. And in terms of, your nonprofit arm, what's next, what are your goals and vision for where you see it going?
Ryan Johnson: So when we first started, we had a mentor, we joined in this program in Atlanta called Goody Nation, which is like an accelerator, to get businesses started. Funny enough, the gentleman, even way back when he's like, Ryan, I believe you all, your nonprofit specifically, you all have the trajectory to become one of the most recognized technology nonprofits within the Southeast, let alone the country. And I think that is kind of like what we're aiming to aspire to do.
The same way that you're used to hearing words like YMCA, Boys and Girls Club, Big Brothers, Big Sisters. We want Cxmmunity or Gaming Cxmmunity specifically to be one of those household names that's responsible for moving the needle of increasing the amount of young black people that are basically going to college with the interest of pursuing a STEM or STEAM related degree.
So I think for us, that type of recognition, the recognition of being able to be identified by our local government to help bring a vision to life, so I think it's, it is interesting. This was our plan a few years ago, now that we're in it, we're really trying to just go deeper, wider, as fast as possible but I don't think there's anything differently that we're going to aspire to do, just making sure that we submit the work that we have started out to do.
Dyani Marvel: Awesome. So how many markets can we find Gaming Cxmmunity?
Ryan Johnson: The nonprofit, and don't quote me on this because again, we're not as day-to-day anymore, but I will say as far as like markets, I mean definitely we built gaming labs in Houston, Atlanta, Alabama, specifically in Huntsville, Alabama, Washington DC, Charlotte. Through Boys and Girls Club, they've done a number of work in Illinois, right outside of Chicago.
I would say right now, anywhere from no more than eight or nine different states, we kind of have not a consistent presence, but have had some type of presence or touch point. I think again, just over time, because we know that black people of color, face these challenges, of access to product, access to adequate bandwidth in all 50 states. So again, as we grow, we would love to touch all 50, but right now we know that the word of us is getting out cause we're focused on this very core demographic and very core markets so over time it will continue to grow.
Dyani Marvel: Awesome. Awesome, awesome. Okay, so let's switch gears for a second. Wondr Nation, we are currently working in the gaming, so you know, we have this gaming terminology, online casino and sports betting, and I know there's like, sometimes some confusion there. So let's talk about and clarify for our listeners, that gaming terminology.
Ryan Johnson: Yeah, so I mean, gaming in our world is really around video games. So, your Sega Genesis, Nintendos, Xbox, PlayStation, PC. It also is inclusive of game development, so the people that are making video games like Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, NBA 2K, et cetera.
I think to your point, sometimes we even get confused when I'm in Las Vegas and we're like, Hey, come to this gaming place. And then we're like, 'Hey, dope', and then we'll go in, it's like casinos we're like, oh, different types of games. But nonetheless, I think it's starting to have a little bit more blurred lines, especially when you talk about betting.
There are a number of, you know, eSports betting platforms and you can bet on professional gaming, like you bet on professional sports. I'm interested kind of to see, and there's just a much larger impetus on this gaming world holistically but I think, you know, there's definitely room for both sides of the coin, to fit within that space. But your gaming definitely makes more money, I'll say that much. Definitely makes more.
Dyani Marvel: Yeah, a little bit. A little bit there, you know, and I think too, it's, it's because it's at the core also, there's a similarity in that it's about entertainment, you know, folks, you know, entertaining themselves. And we consider ourselves an online gaming entertainment company, so, taking that holistic view there and maybe one day even expanding to bring in eSports as another form of online entertainment that we will be working with.
I know too, there's also a lot of talk in the casino industry as the casino... even if you think of your traditional casino patron aging and a lot of organizations feel like eSports is a great way to bring people in and to engage with, with younger people, like really kind of get that relationship rolling. What's your perspective? Do you have a perspective on that?
Ryan Johnson: Yeah. Well, I mean my perspective is kind of more macro and and vague in the sense that I think marketers, event producers, hospitality groups holistically are trying to figure out of like, how do we go younger? Right? That's just the, a big question around the board and I think gaming, content creation, are those terms that continuously pop up because that's where younger people are spending their time.
I think the challenge is going to be figuring out what is that actual authentic connection between the thing that young people love to do and these more established institutions, and how do you actually bring those links together?
As an example, we'll see a lot of times where there'll be like, there'll be parent or like family game nights, right? Gaming where like, you know, fathers now, my friends, right? 30s, young 30s, 35s, et cetera. They grew up playing Call of Duty, NBA 2K, Halo, and we've seen a lot of success at groups that are pairing games that are intergenerational, that allow fathers, sons and daughters to play together, right?
And so like just finding those creative and unique through lines, I think is gonna be probably the biggest challenge, in my opinion, for the various groups that we're talking to across the board about how do we go younger, how do we reach these younger audiences, how do we bring, that's a question everyone says, how do we bring them in? How do we get them in?
Dyani Marvel: Yes.
Ryan Johnson: I think it's gonna be a little bit different though, a different approach for everyone.
Dyani Marvel: Yeah. And I think it's really different too, because coming out of Covid you had a lot of young folks who, you know, we learned, I mean young folks, but everybody, we kinda learned to kind, kind of be happy in our homes or at least try to like, work with what we've got. And now we're, you know, everything's starting to come back and people are starting to come back to these physical experiences.
But I think that there were folks who also found enjoyment in online or virtual experiences and I think, you know, you saw a lot of increase in folks who were playing video games and, and doing gaming and all of these things. So I think that we've changed as a people, you know, changed in general as a society, and it's just about that adjustment over time.
Ryan Johnson: No, I agree.
Dyani Marvel: Awesome. So, um, looking into the future, specifically talking about eSports, what are you most excited about for what's coming for eSports and what your, what or what are some of your kind of maybe predictions for what's to come?
Ryan Johnson: I would say the things I'm most excited about is one, well really just two things, is one, the increased interest in investment across media and advertising brands, agencies that want to come into this space because thankfully, again, when we started this, now... holistically started this four years ago, this wasn't kind of like what our thought was.
We wouldn't say, Hey, we wanna get in this space to be the largest agency or not, we just started, right? It was, very genuine and now that we're at this point, starting when we did, allowed us to be..., now when it comes up, diversity, gaming, multicultural, we're usually in the conversation, and I think that's what I'm now most excited about is like we're four years in, we have developed our processes, our internal procedures, we've done successful campaigns. I'm just curious and really looking forward to what's gonna come this year.
We actually were about to make some pretty cool announcements in the next two to three weeks that if you were to ask me a year ago, I didn't think would've been possible.
The second half of that answer for me is the interest in amplification of the black creator specifically. I think over time... I learned a crazy stat, so they put out, I believe the most followed person on TikTok is the, that black kid that doesn't talk, he, he never uses his voice, but he's the most followed person on TikTok, but ironically enough, he was not in the top 10 paid creators on TikTok.
So it's a really interesting dynamic of that now kind of reversing, and I'm really interested, and excited about what I think is gonna be kind of like this rebirth of black entertainment through these digital creators and just them getting their fair share at equal opportunity, equal pay. And we're able to kind of be in these seats because of the work that we're doing and that also kind of ties back to what we're doing with Big Creator.
But nonetheless, those are the things I'm excited about is the brands that are gonna be investing more money to kind of have more reach in this space and then also pairing that to the increased interest and amplification of black creators. Selfishly and unselfishly, those tie directly to what we're doing, but it also just continues to show that there is gonna be continued future growth in gaming and eSports across the board for us.
Dyani Marvel: I mean, well that sounds exciting to me as well, and we will continue to watch and see what is next. I can't wait to see what these announcements are for your organization.
I think you've done such amazing and inspirational work, and I hope there are more organizations, that kind of follow in suit to try to bring more kind of, equity, equality into the creator space, into the eSports space, into everything that we're doing.
Ryan Johnson: Yeah. No, same.
Dyani Marvel: Awesome. Well, thank you Ryan, so much for joining us. I'm pretty sure our listeners are going to really love this session and learning more about you and what you are doing, and hopefully be interested enough to participate and, and look you guys up.
Ryan Johnson: Now thank you so much and thank you all for having me. I appreciate the time.
Dyani Marvel: All right. Thanks Ryan.
