The ascent of action sports entertainment company Nitro Circus has moved higher in recent weeks. Coming off record audiences for July’s Nitro World Games, the company has since released a lineup of announcements that included the launch of Nitro World Games All Access on NBCSN last week, the upcoming partnership with truTV hit Impractical Jokers for a two-hour season finale on Nov. 3 that will be hosted by action sports star/Nitro circus co-founder Travis Pastrana, as well as a slate of licensing deals that have ranged from categories that include clothing, toys and most recently – videogames. The game deal sees the brand partner with Saber Interactive for a new a new video game property that will be available on all major platforms.
Cynopsis Sports spoke with Peter Maule, Nitro Circus’ Global Head of Licensing, about the company’s recent partnerships as well as the ties between fans of its shows and the videogame world.
Maule on launching a licensing division: When I joined the company in February ’15, we were basically starting from scratch. There wasn’t a single license or product anywhere in the world other than our standard tour t-shirts, hats and things. So it was a real chance to come in a build out a strategy that was focused on getting best-in-class partners that had a history of delivering innovation to their articular categories. It also was a chance for our team to find people that we wanted to work with that shared the same passion in the business and would be able to deliver some really cool products, whether it was in toys or apparel or another category.
On challenges: The biggest obstacle we had to overcome was the brand awareness. In our world, the executives at both the licensee side as well as at retail are not 34-year-old Travis fans. So the first eight months was about a lot of outbound presentations and getting the brand on people’s radar. Once they started getting into it, they would think that there was something compelling here but that was the biggest eye-opener for me coming in. Our brand is still not a household name. It is growing by leaps and bounds but I think that generally there is more comfort for people when they are making an investment in the licensing side of it to really know the brand.
On categories: From a brand point of view, it was important for us to get the headwear and apparel side involved because it has always been iconic in action sports what the athletes wear. That creates a great halo effect for us. It was also important for us to great into the video game world, and we just announced our partnership with Saber Interactive, which did Halo. They believe in the brand so much that they are actually going to fund the entire game themselves, which is a landmark deal because usually the brand has to go and hire a Saber to make the game for them. I believe having a presence in that area will be incredible for the brand.
On ties between Nitro Circus and the videogame world: What we do know is that our very core audience – which is includes our riders that’s what they do all day. They are out practicing, then they play video games and then they go out and use social media. We know that they are huge gamers. We are going to be very aggressive marketing to our core fan base. We are also looking to have a lot of fan engagement in the design of the game and it will be very collaborative. Phase two of our interactive strategy will be involve eSports.
