Forbes experts continue to look with interest in the wallets of our fellow citizens - how much money is there and where exactly is this money received? They did not bypass the relatively young direction of the entertainment industry - esports.
Due to the coronavirus pandemic and the cancellation of tournaments, revenues fell both for individual teams and for the region as a whole. Therefore, we had to abandon the ranking of e-sportsmen by income. But the experts did not give up and took another criterion as a basis - popularity. As a result, rating of the most influential persons in Russian esports in 2020, about which there were the most mentions in the media and social networks and reviews during personal surveys.
10. Oleg Krot
The list of the most influential people in the world of esports - both top managers and players - is opened by the head of the WePlay Esports cyber holding.
Although this company in the post-Soviet space was one of the first e-sports swallows, it existed somewhere on the periphery, did not participate in big business and acquired sponsors only 8 years after its foundation. But what - for example, one of them is Logitech.
WePlay Esports is currently building eSports arenas around the world and hosting online tournaments with massive cash prizes.
9.Andrey x3m4eg Grigoriev
He is one of the most influential Dota players in the post-Soviet space. Some even consider Grigoriev a "gray eminence" who, apparently, secretly directs Valve's policy in the vastness of Russia and Ukraine.
Now he, together with Vitaly Volochay (second place in the rating), is the founding father of Maincast, which is engaged in esports commenting.
8. Stepan Shulga
Where there is sport, there are bets, and where there are bets, there are bookmakers. It is no wonder that e-sports disciplines have acquired their own bookmakers.
And the most influential e-sports bookmaker in Russia is Parimatch, run by Stepan Shulga. In addition to making bets, Parimatch also sponsors teams (in CS: GO and Dota 2), and also hosts tournaments.
7. Yaroslav Komkov
There are esports holdings in Russia that are involved in holding tournaments, looking for teams for players, and sponsors for teams, managing arenas and generally bringing money into the esports world.
One of these holdings is Winstrike, which is headed by Yaroslav Komkov. Last year, he managed to knock out one of the stages of the prestigious international CS: GO tournament and hold it in Moscow. Among the sponsors, companies such as Toyota and Samsung were noted.
6. Alexander Kokhanovsky
A representative of the old generation of Russian cybersportsmen, who were playing Counter Strike at the dawn of the 2000s. Alexander was also fond of him, so much so that he actually created one of the first e-sports teams in the post-Soviet space.
The Natus Vincere project, aka Na'Vi (remember this name, we will see it in the rating more than once) turned out to be very successful, and a few years later Alexander and his partner created the ESforce holding (also another big name in e-sports).
And this project turned out to be successful and brought its creators $ 100 million (it was for this amount that Mail.ru Group bought it).Leaving the management of EN, Kokhanovsky decided not to rest on his laurels and organized another own company - Zero Gravity Group, which, in addition to Natus Vuncere, includes the DreamTeam multiservice platform.
Alexander's plans are grandiose, he bought a whole hotel in Kiev, which is going to turn into a "physical" center of virtual sports in Ukraine.
5. Alexey Solo Berezin
In total, out of 30 influential representatives of Russian esports selected by Forbes, less than a third of the players, in fact, were in the rating, and there are only two of them in the top ten. With the coronavirus, the balance of power in esports has shifted from private to public, from players to companies. And although talented esportsmen are still worth their weight in gold and still occupy a "strong position" in relations with organizations, there is a tilt of influence in favor of contracts in the region.
Solo, aka Aleksey Berezin, is actually the face of Russian esports in Dota 2. For more than ten years, he and his team, Virtus.pro, have consistently performed in this game more successfully than other residents of the former USSR. According to experts, his esports career has earned Alexey more than $ 1.7 billion, plus the annual captain's salary.
To Alexei's credit, over the years he softened his soul and decided to fight toxicity among the players. So much so that I arranged a meeting with the vice president of Valve. True, Valve's MOVA still breaks records for obscene language and other manifestations of unsportsmanlike behavior. but maybe the state of affairs will change sooner or later.
4. Alexander s1mple Kostylev
Alexander Kostylev, aka s1mple (this is his nickname in the CS: GO world) has been accustomed to the pixel rifle from a young age. According to rumors, the first time he took up arms in four years.
Young reflexes and talent did their job, and for a long time Alexander was considered one of the strongest players in Counter-Strike, and in 2018 he took first place. He plays in the composition of the already mentioned Na'Vi team.
However, a year after his triumph, Alexander tasted defeat - he is no longer the strongest player in the world. Because of this, his income fell by almost half. But despite his age and slowing reflexes, he is still the most influential CS player in Russia.
3. Evgeniy HarisPilton Zolotarev
And here is the director of that very famous group Na'Vi. In his youth, he played CS like many other esports influencers. There he met one of the founders of the club, Kokhanovsky (sixth place on the list), and gradually joined the team.
Two years ago, Evgeniy took over the reins of Na'Vi from Kokhanovsky's hands, and in general it had a positive effect on the life of the club. Na'Vi have become the leader in terms of the number of views not only in Russia, but all over the world.
2. Vitaly v1lat Volochay
The face of sports commenting on eSports in Russia. Vitaly started with podcasts for specialized forums, and then switched to streaming eSports tournaments in CS and Dota, loved by Russians. So successful that by 2015 the RuHub he founded had become the most famous, recognizable and, to some extent, even an innovative e-sports commenting studio.
As usual, popularity entails money, and RuHub first became part of the ESforce holding, and then in 2018 the studio was bought out by Mail.ru Group.
Vitaly clearly did not agree with the rearrangements that took place in the business field. Together with like-minded people, he decided to start all over again and created his own studio Maincast, which is still independently floating in the waters of esports. An extremely successful deal keeps her afloat - Vitaly managed to knock out the right to single-handedly broadcast their tournaments from major international esports organizations ESL and DreamHack. The contracts actually confirmed Maincast's dominance in the Russian esports commenting market.
1. Emin Antonyan
Esforce Holding and its CEO Emin Antonyan secretly reign over the Russian esports field, largely thanks to the support of Mail.ru Group, which bought the rights to the company two years ago. The holding began its existence thanks to the efforts of two e-sports enthusiasts, Alexey Kolesnikov and Anton Cherepennikov.It included Alexander Kokhanovsky with his group Natus Vincere (the sixth place in the rating) and the German e-sports club SK Gaming.
The holding was so successful that it attracted the attention of Alisher Usmanov, who invested a round sum of $ 100 million in it. Esforce Holding was the first in Russia to organize an international eSports tournament and the first to build an entire eSports arena for this business. Mail.ru Group acquired the rights to the company two years ago, and the original founders of the company, as business newsmen delicately put it, stopped participating in the work of the holding.
This is how Emin Antonyan entered the scene, heading Esforce Holding under the auspices of Mail.ru. His appointment was not accidental. Emin is one of the first pioneers of virtual sports in Russia and has been holding the honorary position of General Secretary of the Russian Cybersport Federation for four years.
The traditional direction of cybersport clubs in Russia and neighboring Ukraine is Counter Strike and Dota. And every year EH hosts two tournaments in these disciplines. The holding did not bypass such a poorly studied, but very profitable area, like pixel trading - it owns two services for buying and selling game items via CS and Dota. In addition, Esforce Holding supports Fortnite, Paladins and Apex Legends teams.
It is interesting that in addition to purely virtual sports, Emin does not forget about ordinary sports. For a long time Antonyan has been a coach of the elite-amateur basketball club "Moskovsky" and is not going to give up this business.