Engine Shop Co-Founder Ed Kiernan and former Blizzard Chief Operating Officer Paul Sams have been hired to lead Damage Esports Agency as Co-Founders and equity-holding Partners.
Damage Esports has been in development for two years and will re-launch with new capital as an esports marketing agency consulting on sponsorships, influencer relations and marketing with live tournaments. The agency has already been working with clients including Gen.G Esports (Seoul Dynasty), Subaru, University of California – Irvine, Linksys, and T-Mobile.
Keirnan previously worked with Engine Shop, a marketing and advertising agency for entertainment and sports which was acquired by Bruin Sports Capital in 2015. Kiernan certainly is an entrepreneur with a lengthy resume of founding and investing in companies involved in sports and entertainment, so much that he earned a spot on SportsBusiness Journal’s Forty Under 40 in 2014.
While Paul Sams is widely known as the former Chief Operating Officer of Blizzard, he was also Executive Producer for the movie Warcraft and Chief Executive Officer of Dawn Studios for two years. Like Kiernan, Sams sits as an advisor for a list of businesses in entertainment and gaming and is also a minority shareholder of the Pittsburgh Steelers.
Sams told Sports Business Journal: “It’s an area of real passion and love of mine, and one of the ways you do that is to get it in front of more people. You need to find ways to bring in endemic and non-endemic brands, because it adds credibility.”
Sams also hinted that the agency may consider team ownership in the future.
Esports Insider says: As esports grows so does the necessity for legitimate marketing agencies. As Damage Esports has already worked with a few big name clients, bringing on two veteran executives makes sense to further build out the agency’s portfolio. Let’s see what Damage Esports can do for its future clients with Sams and Kiernan on board.