The eSports Advertising Bureau is formally opening its doors, lining up an Advisory Board that includes Turner, Twitch, Major League Gaming, The Madison Square Garden Company, Canoe and Magid Advisors. The organization’s mantra will look to offer marketers with tools “so they can confidently invest media dollars to a sports category that is still widely unknown to advertising brands” that include publication of common ad metrics, offering eSports ad landscape education and guidance to marketers, and promotion of best practices. Stuart Lipson will serve as the organization’s Executive Director.

“Imagine the value we could provide to every seller if the first 15 minutes of every meeting weren’t dedicated to explaining what eSports is and isn’t and what the magnitude of the opportunity is,” said Lipson. “There are two things that are dangerous: the first is people who do neck curls and pretend that they get it even though they don’t; the second is people who don’t get it and don’t tell you so it becomes an archeological dig, they take your materials and it ends up at the bottom of a pile. The beauty of the advisory board is that we’ve gone across the ecosystem so that we can make sure everybody’s interest is represented, including the venue.”

“We took what could be new and complicated to folks and made it really easy,” said Chris Pizzurro, Head of Business Development, Sales & Marketing at Canoe. “People generally don’t like new. New can be scary and people can get fired over new. But if you have an adjustment to something, people are asked to go over that and it isn’t as scary. I’ve taken that approach with VOD, and people have been extremely successful moving 5-10% of linear TV budgets over to video-on-demand. For eSports, you start from the basis that it is sports. Everyone likes sports. Then you trigger from there, starting with what’s familiar and then do into the point that unique and differentiating about it.”