Happy Walters, Founder and former CEO of Relativity Sports, and Josh Swartz, former President of Relativity Sports announced the launch of Catalyst yesterday with Bryce Blum, Founding Partner at IME Law, heading up its esports division.
Catalyst Sports and Media will, as per the press release “act as a strategic advisor, investor and talent representative with a focus on global growth properties, including basketball, global football and esports”.
Blum, who is an Executive Vice President at Catalyst, will maintain his role at IME Law wherein he represents a considerable amount of teams, casters and companies in the space.
Under Blum’s leadership, Catalyst has already begun investing in the space and advising global brands including Dr. Pepper on how to most effectively invest their marketing spend in esports.
Blum stated: “The financial opportunities in the burgeoning world of esports are infinite and we believe we at Catalyst are uniquely positioned to take advantage of them. I am thrilled to be working alongside such sports and media industry powerhouses as Happy, Josh and Brad, and look forward to helping transform the face of the esports world for the betterment of all stakeholders.
“We are also excited to add other talented, esports industry veterans in the coming months.”
The founders of Catalyst have backgrounds as agents in the NBA, NFL in addition to extensive experience in the entertainment industries such as music, film and television. Happy Walters for instance headed up his own record label which he later sold to Sony Music.
Walters said: “We have assembled an unbelievable team of individuals who are experts in what they do. We will leverage their experience and leadership in traditional sports and media businesses as we seek to redefine the notion of a ‘sports agency,’ capitalize on the tectonic shift of media consumption in growth sports such as global football, basketball, and esports, and make significant investments that will fundamentally alter the sports world like never before.”
Catalyst also announced that the company will be making key investments and partnerships with up-and-coming leaders in the esports space. Two such partnerships already in place are with Super League Gaming and GumGum, a leading computer vision company that ‘offers innovative advertising and visual intelligence solutions for brands and publishers’.
Catalyst Sports & Media is backed by a group of investors led by Bay-area entrepreneur, Jim Fowler.
Esports Insider says: A distinctive and diverse level of experience is heading up and fronting this new agency and with two solid partnerships already in place the future is bright.