Following last week’s unveiling of its C-level team, American Leisure Holdings’ GG Media Network upped the ante this week by announcing that Hollywood Riviera Studios had signed on as an investor. Hollywood Riviera Studios financing will look to support the company’s upcoming esports and gaming project, slated to begin filming later this month and described as a humorous talk show dedicated to the esports and gaming lifestyle, in addition to the company’s other forays into talent management, brand sponsorships and event management.
Cynopsis Esports spoke with Christian Bishop, CEO of GG Media Network, about the launch of the company, its goals and what we can expect from the platform.
Bishop on his interest in gaming: I’ve been a gamer for my entire life. I was the kid who put computers together and created LAN tournaments, and for me, as my career progressed and I jumped into the corporate lifestyle, I tried to stay as close as I could to technology. Funnily enough, I started to get recruited for TV shows such as ABC’s The Bachelorette and Bachelor in Paradise and I was able to start producing movies and other projects with people in the space. But I started to wonder why we weren’t seeing more projects about gaming in the mainstream and why we weren’t seeing more high-quality production being created. But when I talked with them, it seemed like people were really scared of this industry, so I put my money where my mouth was and started making some significant investments.
On content: We are developing a network-quality show with a comedic approach that will be a mix of The Today Show with ESPN. We’ve identified a need for comedy in this space, not only to tell the story about esports, but also to bring in the people who don’t get “it,” and why we are so obsessed with this industry. We recognize comedy to bridge that gap, like it has done for pop culture whether it is for politics, race, etc. It is clear that comedy plays a huge role and we see that having the same effect in the gaming space. We’ll be sending crews to cover different events, and we’ve auditioned a couple hundred people for our talent roles before finding six, two hosts and four correspondents.
On the road ahead: We are looking to build up a full esports news organization that’s built around comedy. You will see our company maintaining a presence at every major event and we will continue to support the initiatives around digital content with compelling stories. We are already in talks to provide segments with various platforms such as Snapchat, in addition to our main show. We also see the huge opportunity to support the people who are in that middle ground, who aren’t at the pro level, and we are interested in representing people in that space, giving them support and infrastructure and support to be successful in addition to working with companies like Esports Arena to build some grassroots tournaments.
On favorite games: I’m a big WoW player and play a lot of League of Legends and some Battlerite.
