USA Esports' Jesse Bodony on the Esports Nations Cup: "Participation is not equivalent to endorsement" — Part Two

During DreamHack Atlanta, Dust2.us' Jeffrey "Mnmzzz" Moore had the opportunity to sit down for an extended interview with Jesse Bodony, the recently named President and CEO of USA Esports, a body aiming to become the nexus for esports in the United States.

In part two of our interview, Moore and Bodony discuss developments in USA Esports' efforts to become a National Governing Body for esports, recent setbacks in the world of Olympic esports, and the ethical and logistical challenges that come with participating in the Esports Nations Cup (ENC).

The discussions on the ENC delved into the topics of "sportswashing in sport", whether USA Esports can uphold their values in Saudi Arabia, player safety, and the future of the ENC as Saudi Arabia seeks to reel in its Vision 2030 "spending spree".

You've been working on USA Esports before ENC was publicly announced. But was this all because of the Esports Nations Cup?

We started having these conversations in the fall of 2024 and that was well before the Esports Nations Cup even existed. The idea of the Esports Olympic Games, which was announced before that, was a catalyst that was driving some of these conversations forward. I believe USA Esports would exist regardless, but certainly the prospect of the Esports Olympic Games, any international nation-based competition, Esports Nations Cup, those were definitely catalysts. But I do think it would've happened regardless.

Over the years, we've seen a lot of these organizations come out of the woodwork, trying to be the United States Esports official representative body. They've put together flashy websites, great videos, great marketing, but they end up being somewhat abortive efforts. What makes this different from those previous abortive attempts that ran out of maybe money, momentum, or even interest?

It depends quite a bit on the "Why". And while many efforts in the past have had good intentions, I will say specifically that the United States Esports Federation folks are incredible, and we are very much able to have success and build in the ways we're building because of their efforts. We are working with them closely, so our efforts are very consolidated, and folks from that organization are on our board of directors, namely Todd Harris. We're working with some of their other employees and staff who have been fantastic. So we are trying to harmonize what they've built and continue to scaffold and build on top of it.

The difference with what we're doing is we are taking about as serious a swing at it as you possibly can. If we're going to do this, let's go all in. Let's try to do it by the book, the right way, build in the eyes of the USOPC [United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee], build an organization that's worthy of being a national governing body for the United States of America. Not to say that those weren't the ambitions or intentions of other groups, but it's a super difficult project. It requires a ton of buy-in, trust, alignment, connections, and resources. It probably takes a few swings and misses, not quite getting it right, for something to emerge that has a chance. We're lucky to be in a position to be able to continue to build on those efforts.

What does that process actually look like, and where are we at in that process of essentially trying to convince the US government that we matter, that we exist, that USA Esports should be the esports NGB?

So we're, we're in the early innings, for sure. We speak pretty regularly with the USOPC. They've been great in terms of helping give us guidance. They're aware of the Esports Olympics. They have had many internal conversations about it. They know that at some point something's going to happen. So, they want to work with folks to make sure that if and when that moment occurs where they're reviewing and auditing an organization for NGB status, that it's set up for success. So they've been helpful.

But to give you an idea of the process generally, and then where we're at, is that esports needs to be included as official Olympic programming at the level of the IOC, and that has flip-flopped a little bit. It looks promising from what we've heard, but who knows? Once it is, and let's say hypothetically, esports is in the Olympics, then that requires the USOPC choose an organization to be the national governing body. So the way that works is there's a month-long open application. If you're a nonprofit, you can apply. They close that after a month, then there's a six-month to eight-month audit process of the organization where they turn over every stone. They look at your finances. Are you solvent? Are you bringing in viewers? What are your processes? Who do you have? Do you have paid employees? The whole thing.

They want to make sure that if they're going to pick an organization, that it's up to the standard of an Olympic government-backed, USA NGB. At the end of that process, there are public hearings. It's a whole thing. Then you find out if you become a national governing body, so we are building in anticipation of that. We're trying to do everything by the book, doing everything in the spirit of the USOPC, from athlete selection to compliance, to conflict of interest, to building the right boards, to standing up the right committees, and building the structure of the organization properly. Then we're going to play it by ear in terms of when that opens up, and we'll see.

You sounded a bit disappointed in where things are going with Olympic esports. What's the mood in USA Esports amidst some of the decisions they made recently in the Olympic space?

I actually wouldn't say disappointed. This might be a little bit strongly worded, but it could be a blessing in disguise. With the Esports Nations Cup, that's checking a box of a major international nation-versus-nation esports traditional title competition. From what you can see right now, based on the interest and the buy-in, and people getting excited who's going to be on Team USA, Team Brazil, it's checking that box pretty squarely from a competitive standpoint.

If you were to do the Esports Olympics, officially, and it was like Tic-Tac-Bow, E-taekwondo, Zwift race, whatever that might be, my own feeling is that that might not work out so well for many reasons. From what we're hearing from Kirsty Coventry, they're putting a pause on it and taking another look at it. Maybe they look at ENC to see how that's run. I've heard whispers that maybe they'll come back together even though they've split. I don't think that the fact that it's not happening now or this year is bad at all. I would rather wait a year, two years, three years, and have it be done right and integrated, and set up for success and sustainability. To me, that's way more important.

Remind us, who is Kirsty Coventry? Can you elaborate on her role?

She is the new president of the IOC and she put out something recently that says esports is still very much top of [the IOC's] mind.

At this point, we moved the focus of our discussion to the upcoming Esports Nations Cup, which is scheduled to take place in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, this November.

In the press release announcing USA Esports, there is a stated commitment to "Inclusive Excellence" as a guiding principle for the organization. How do you reconcile this value with the reality on the ground for the ENC in Saudi Arabia, where LGBTQ individuals, women, and ethnic and religious minorities are all persecuted by the same state running the event?

There are a couple of things that are important here. One is that participation is not equivalent to endorsement, and there are precedents for this. You look at traditional athletics, where there are very few places in the world that aren't problematic, conflicted, clashing with values of nations and other folks internationally, and yet things like the World Cup in Qatar and other places around the world still happen. So there's a precedent for athletic competition happening in complex contexts, and following those examples and how that's done is something that we've been looking to try to do as well.

We don't get to influence culture, the world, and esports in the way that we can with our own values. We have our values, and wherever we participate, we're going to show up with our values. But culture progresses and gets to move forward when nations and countries and cultures get to interface with each other.

Saudi Arabia is not the Saudi Arabia that it was eight years ago, and yes, it's a different culture with different contexts, and it has its own issues and everything going on. But also, there's been a lot of progress there. If you look at its treatment of women over the past eight years, it's not the same country. Mirna, on our board of directors, is from the Middle East, and she'll tell you this firsthand. So we want to go with our values, participate, and help things progress in the way that we can.

You mentioned Qatar, where you saw these examples of where a number of teams said they were going to make some an inclusive gesture with rainbow armbands. Then, FIFA banned the armbands hours before the matches started seemingly at the urging of Qatar. Is that how things should be? If we're trying to build something new in esports, should we be relying on those old precedents of "shut up, go to the event, play the games, and talk about it on your own time"?

I don't know if we should be looking at those exact precedents. The precedents are one level higher and broader. There are are conflicting, complex contexts in which we the United States and other countries come to participate in. That doesn't mean that we don't do that without holding onto our core values as best we can. We're going to prioritize what we're going to prioritize, which is the well-being, safety, feelings, political orientations of our players. And we'll make sure that they're heard, taken care of, and working with them on a case-by-case basis to make sure that we're not sacrificing our values and what we believe in, while also not being on the sidelines. We can keep things progressing in the way that we want to be catalysts of change for.

There was a 2023 quote from Melissa Burns, who is the head of Esport Canada ahead of IESF [International Esports Federation] basically saying that Esport Canada "cannot make any promises or guarantees" about the safety of LGBTQ+ competitors at the Saudi Event. Is that a red line for you, if you cannot guarantee your players' safety to be themselves in Saudi Arabia, will USA Esports still attend their events?

I can't speak to what Melissa said or didn't say. I'm not sure about the quote exactly, but player safety, athlete safety, and athlete well-being are of paramount importance, whatever that looks like. So far, we've had good communication with the folks over in Saudi Arabia and with the ENC, and we feel confident that we're going to be able to send our players there in a way that feels good and safe, where they're not having to sacrifice their values. We're going to stick to that, and if things come up, we're going to address those on a case-by-case basis.

Has there been any discussion about whether the ENC will have runway to continue existing, or is it something that we fear could maybe see one edition, two editions, and then the Saudi government changes their investment strategy? Is there a guarantee of longevity as this is so important to USA Esports?

There's definitely no guarantee of anything, and certainly what the PIF [the Saudi Public Investment Fund] decides to put their money towards or not put their money towards is very much out of our control. The way we look at it is we want to be solvent, sustainable, and able to fulfill our mission as an organization, not reliant on external competitions, and they will ebb and flow for sure. Whether ENC's here for two years or 10 years, I have no idea. The Esports Olympics is something else entirely. We're going to continue to build something that works regardless of those things and isn't overly reliant on them. We want to be part of it, utilize it, be at the table so we can help esports progress broadly, but we don't want to over-index in such a way where we're out over our own skis, and it's bad for the organization.

Does USA Esports have a plan to be solvent and stable should the ENC be short-lived?

For sure. Our funding, our resources, most national governing bodies in the United States, it's a mixture of sponsorship, philanthropy, membership revenue, which is all irrespective of international competition and performance bonuses around the Olympics or other international events.

The funding attached to the ENC is mostly marketing around the ENC, so it's not like the organization's getting anything to do with stuff that's not ENC related. So it's not a funding source at all. We're building a solvent organization whether ENC happens or not.

Where are we looking in the selection process for the teams that are representing the United States for ENC? What's, what's the news on that front?

Coaches are selected in public for the game titles that have coaches. Some of the titles are still to be qualified for, and coaches will be announced later with that. Our players internally are put together, and we have a good idea of what our rosters are, and that's going to be announced publicly in the next couple of weeks. We feel good about the coaches and the players we have.

What can you tell us about the priorities for building a team? Is competitive excellence the only focus there? Are you looking for more established figures in professional esports? Are you looking for younger players, like in the collegiate scene? What makes a good player a good fit for Team USA, regardless of esports title?

Daniel Clerke is our President of Esports Operations and our National Team Manager for the ENC. He's probably better equipped to answer this question than I am, but I can give you at least a rough outline. We are trying to do two things simultaneously. One, have a process that's rigorous and built in the spirit of the USOPC and a national governing body, which is done in a very certain way, while also doing it in the way that the ENC has asked or required, which is that the national team manager selects coaches, coaches select the players, and that's how rosters are built.

Within that framework, we're making it as robust as possible, so we have rubrics and evaluation criteria and folks looking at all of this. We have one for coaches and one for players, where we're considering and weighing a lot of the things you described, like how well they are actually doing competitively currently. We want the best players in a competitive sense. Are they going to be good representatives and stewards of the United States of America and our organization? That's certainly something. How do they fit into a team amongst other players? What do the coaches also prioritize as intangibles? Trying to evaluate all of the various factors that go into putting together a great team. Sometimes it's not the best players on paper, it's the right players, which can be quite a few people near the top of the pile. Overall, we're trying to win medals and put together the strongest rosters, and the coaches have been incredible. They've been super thorough and diligent. Dan's been amazing in running this process excellently. That's a look under the hood, a little bit.

The goal is to kick some ass this fall, right?

Every game we send, which is all 16 of them, our goal and ambition is to win. People are like, "Ah, you're never gonna beat Brazil. You're not gonna beat Korea." We're going into it thinking that we are going to get first place in every single game, Counter-Strike included. Whether we're a favorite or somewhere near the top, a dark horse, we're going to train and build a philosophy and culture internally where that's what we're going for, 100%.