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Hello! This will be a series of articles in which I discuss the organizations that are most likely to make it into VALORANT franchising and why. This first article will be on XERXIA Esports, a notable org in the Thai ecosystem that recently rose to fame.
VALORANT’s franchising system has a variety of factors that help to show whether an organization is capable of partnership, in Riot’s eyes. While the specifics are unknown, XERXIA ticks off some factors that could sway themselves in their favor, most notably the following; stability, fame, money/financials, and commitment. Each point will be addressed in detail.
A TLDR can be found at the bottom of this article if you’d like to see a shortened version of the points discussed. Please note that this article is also just pure opinion, nothing has been said about who’s formally being accepted as of yet!
Background
XERXIA Esports is a Thai organization that originally began its esports venture by starting with a PUBG roster, founding around October of 2021.
The org, however, did not find much of its fame within PUBG; but broke out into fame after signing the ex-X10 CRIT roster that had split with its initial org following the 2021 VALORANT Champions tournament in January.
Since then, XERXIA have became a household name in the Thai VALORANT scene since their entrance into the scene.
Money, Financials, & Stability
The most important thing an esports organization can have is money. Especially in a homegrown APAC organization; money and stable financials have plagued Asian esports negatively for as long as can be, with various issues stemming in teams due to issues with money.
Although XERXIA themselves was recently struggling with financial issues themselves after a middling PUBG roster could not find success; their breakout in the VCT led to a recent undertaking by Thai company One To One Contact, in a massive deal that had not been seen yet in the Thai esports scene.
One To One Contact, a subdivision of Thai company Samart Comporation; bought out XERXIA Esports for a whopping 3 million USD just 2 weeks ago.
Samart on their own is a company dating back to the 1950s; focusing primarily on electronics and telecommunications and is also a public company on the Thai Stock Exchange, with a whopping recent 46 million USD, or 1.64 billion THB valuation in their most recent quarterly.
For comparison; this is more than the recent quarterly of Luminosity owners Enthusiast Gaming, by about $10 million USD.
Regardless of these valuations, with the support of a much larger and much older company in Samart & OTO; XERXIA now has new waves of funding to its name that it previously struggled to obtain, which helps to show that XERXIA has the money to support a long-term esports project, and with a larger parent company behind their name, they can also keep the XERXIA subdivision functioning for years on end with a lower chance of instability compared to other APAC esport organizations.
Commitment
Commitment is also a heavy factor in the potential of an org making it into franchising, in the eyes of Riot.
The recent XERXIA acquisition also makes sure of this factor too. In an interview conducted with OTO regarding the buyout, their CEO said this quote regarding what they will do in the esports space, and how committed they are to it.
“The company moves forward to being a tech company, ready to go into esports in full. [We’re] confident that this operation will expand the revenue base in the future…nationally & internationally, like other world-class teams. The team’s market value will be no less than 200–500 million US dollars [by 2025.] This will create an exponential growth…supporting the company’s performance.,” said by their CEO.
In this sense, the CEO says that he wants to go all into esports operations; to the point where XERXIA will gain a value of anywhere between $200–500 million USD by just 2025, and no less than $200 million in another part of the interview.
Just in comparison to this chart; if the CEO’s ambitions become true then at the very least XERXIA will be competing with T1 & Gen.G for the highest valued Asian-based esports org within the next 3 years.
While it’s also safe to say that the hopes are very a very ambitious undertaking, it shows how committed an org like XERXIA will be just in the general esports scene alone.
It’s also expected that the VALORANT operations will be ramped up heavily too, as OTO’s acquisition came about mostly by XERXIA’s dominance in VALORANT. In addition, XERXIA’s vision of taking on unknown, young & fresh talent such as in new star player Thanachart “Surf” Rungapajaratkul will show how the org is interested to nurture and support the upcoming players in the scene.
Fame & Fanbase
Another two important factors when it comes to hopes of making franchising; Riot also primarily wants those who will attract as much attention to their upcoming continental leagues as possible. XERXIA, however; also boasts a massive fanbase to their name.
The initial X10 CRIT roster on its own already held a rising fanbase too, at the helm of players such as ex-member Patiphan and foxz, just to name a few. The signing under XERXIA also helped to only boost their name even more, with XERXIA now being a much bigger org in the Thai space, their fanbase also exponentially boomed too.
Primarily based off an already rising Thai community in VALORANT following the run of Thai representatives X10 & FULL SENSE in the VALORANT Champions event. Ever since, Thailand has been a growing market for the game; and teams to represent the country such as XERXIA help to do so.
Take a look at SuperBusS for example, a substitute-now streamer for FULL SENSE who saw a huge spike in growth on Twitch as the 2022 VCT season began to kick off in Asian regions such as Thailand.
SuperBusS is only one of many Thai streamers who saw a spike in growth during 2022. Other Thai personalities also saw this steady growth, including the entirety of the XERXIA roster.
In addition, XERXIA in particular gave higher viewership & views to anyone who had covered their games during the 2022 season. Just in Stage 1 of APAC Playoffs, all 5 most viewed games were from Thai teams, with the top 3 all coming from XERXIA alone.
This viewer support also carries over from one platform to another, including Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook primarily. Yet, XERXIA’s fanbase has continued its steady growth as both an organization and as individuals under their VALORANT roster.
While not as big in social media presence compared to other Thai orgs such as Made in Thailand; for the org’s recency into relevance it’s still nothing to scoff at as the org still continues its trend of upward growth; culminating from a strong community & popular figures.
Conclusion
As this article concludes, or if you wanted a short summary of how XERXIA in particular will make VCT’s franchising in APAC, here’s why: XERXIA’s combination of a large, and still growing fanbase with large amounts of support combined with a recent heavy investor in their operations who have since acquired the organization for a hefty sum, helps to check off XERXIA in regards of fame, stability, and funding necessary to support their chances of making the VALORANT partnership program, as XERXIA’s commitment to both VALORANT and general esports continue on.
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