Robby Ringnalda and Scott Kelly, CEO of Denial Esports and CEO of Black Dog Venture Partners respectively, have partnered to launch consultancy group Black Dog Gaming.
In yesterday’s press release, it was revealed that Black Dog Gaming will aim to provide assistance to ‘companies in the esports, egaming and video game industries’. The services on offer include marketing, business and high-level strategy development, and financial consultations.
Black Dog will be reliant on Scott’s general knowledge as a “25-year fundraising, marketing, sales, training and publicity veteran”. Robby will provide the esports industry experience after 16 years in the field, the last five of which he has also been involved with consultancy for various tech companies.
“Robby is a seasoned veteran in esports, technology and marketing and I am thrilled to be partnering with him,” said Scott. He also outlined their aims to make Black Dog Gaming “a first-class advisory for established and new entrants in esports and egaming”.
However, they will also have to deal with an unfortunate history of hitting the headlines for the wrong reasons. During Robby’s tenure as Denial CEO, the organisation reportedly owed their Halo team $3,000 and also failed to properly pay their League of Legends roster in 2015 according to reports from Dot Esports. Later, Super Smash Bros Melee player James “Duck” Ma was confirmed to have left Denial over missed payments, although he received them in full just days after ESPN’s article was released. Denial Esports have since added two new leaders in ex-NFL player Hank Baskett and gaming and casino investor Stephen A. Crystal, who joined Scott as co-owners in March.
Black Dog Gaming will hope to put that murky past behind them as they look to secure partnership with new organisations in the gaming world.
Esports Insider says: A company which offers marketing and financial consultancy would not be expected to have connections to reports of missed payments. They will do well to prove through any future partnerships what they may have learnt from that history.
