Esports News UK editor Dom Sacco reflects on his and the site’s most eventful year to date.
I don’t usually like to toot my own horn, but after being nominated for an award this year, one of the things I had to do was send in supporting information for the Esports Awards judges. While putting this together, it made me realise how much I’ve enjoyed working this year, and led me to pull together some stats that I wouldn’t usually seek out.
As the year comes to an end, I thought it’d be a good time to share this with you all, and to look back on what I and other ENUK writers did throughout 2023.
Over the past year I have written 668 articles on Esports News UK, and published a further 50+ from other guest contributors. Granted, a lot of these are stories from press releases, but I have to focus on these partly to keep a niche site ticking over, and also due to the time-saving convenience they offer given I have three kids to take care of.
Overall, since launching as a blog in 2008 and rebranding to a news outlet in 2015, the site has published 5,000+ articles.
I’ve published about 90 videos on YouTube over the past year, more than 120 on TikTok, and broadcast roughly 40 Twitch streams, meaning I’ve produced more than 900 pieces of written and video content over the past 12 months. That’s not to mention the time sink that is social media, research, conducting interviews, hosting events and talks, writing third-party reports and the newsletter I put together for British Esports on a weekly basis. I work hard, but I enjoy it, and can’t think of doing anything else at this point.
I highlight ten of my key pieces of work and achievements from the past year below, in chronological order.
1. London to host League of Legends MSI 2023 – sources
December 2022/January 2023
I first broke the news that the League of Legends MSI would be taking place in London. While this was technically published in December 2022, the news carried over into 2023 and the event was eventually officially announced by Riot a few months later. The event ended up being the most memorable of the year for me – more on that later.
2. Esports News UK industry networking events and viewing parties
April-November
Esports is all about the community, so I like to put together events for my readers where I can. And in a tough esports journalism sector, events can offer sponsors something beyond ads and sponsored articles.
I ran three Esports News UK events over the past year, including (most recently) a League of Legends Worlds 2023 viewing party with the Predator Orion X, plus a Spring party with Evnia earlier this year, with both taking place at Platform bars in London.
I also tagged onto Epic.LAN’s 20th birthday party at Epic 40, to celebrate Esports News UK’s 9th birthday party with ENDX. I hope to organise more events in 2024.
3. Digital Schoolhouse finals, journalism award and BBC coverage
April-May
In April I was kindly asked by UK games industry trade body Ukie to cover their Digital Schoolhouse Smash Bros finals for school students across the UK.
As well as this, I was asked to judge a student journalism competition, to pick a winning article to be published on Esports News UK. The story, about St Mary’s College and Northern Ireland’s only all-female esports club, went national, with the BBC covering the story.
I also report on other collegiate esports, including the British Esports Student Champs, NUEL, NSE and the University Esports Masters (for the latter I was lucky enough to cover the finals at Nottingham’s Confetti X facility in-person).
4. MSI London coverage and that Caps interview
May
Hannah Marie and I reported in-person from the Copper Box Arena in East London throughout the three weeks from May 2nd to 21st, with player, talent and fan interviews, as well as the usual match reports and news stories. You can see our MSI 2023 content here.
Our interviews with G2 stood out (Hannah spoke to Hans Sama and I chatted with Caps). Streamer Caedrel reacted to this, and my questions for Caps about East London.
This led to London grime artist JME seeing it, and tweeting out ‘Man Like Caps’. This later led to G2’s official channels and other interviewers like DonJake asking Caps about JME and the interview. It was bizarre but fun.
Overall, MSI was a thoroughly enjoyable event – I wish I could cover it all over again!
5. Worlds 2024 in London ‘a real possibility’ – sources
May 25th 2023
It wasn’t long before I dropped another exclusive about a League of Legends event in the UK. This time it was about how part of the 2024 League of Legends World Championship would ‘very likely’ take place in London.
From my various connections at MSI and beyond, I was able to piece together and corroborate info to break this story, which was later announced by Riot in November (Worlds 2024 finals coming to London’s O2 Arena).
6. Talks and mentoring
Various
I gave talks on esports journalism and the state of the industry to students at various colleges and universities, including Bournemouth University, Southampton Solent University and the University of Chichester. For the latter, I was invited by lecturer and former pro player Rams Singh to give feedback on the students’ Chi Invitational 2023 event.
You can see a behind the scenes clip below, where I was asked to talk to students before they went live.
I was also asked by National Student Esports (NSE) to be a part of its Intel FutureGen Buddy List 2023, mentoring a student throughout the year.
I really enjoy this kind of work, giving back to the next generation of writers and reporters, and hope to do much more of this in the future.
7. Coverage of other UK esports events
Various
As always, my team and I did our best to cover other major events in UK esports throughout the year. This included the Apex Legends ALGS tournaments, the CoD Warzone event, Scotland’s first major Fortnite LAN (Red Bull Contested) and more.
I also cover try to cover live events like the Insomnia Gaming Festival and Epic.LAN events where I can.
Esports News UK produced a host of Apex Legends content throughout 2023 in particular, with EA hosting several ALGS events in the UK. I enlisted the services of freelancer Hannah Marie, an Apex Legends expert, to help me with this coverage from London and Birmingham. She conducted a range of interviews, including with VikkiKitty above, and we did a joint interview with EA about bringing the Apex Legends $2m Championship event to Birmingham for the first time.
8. Esports in the UK: Challenges and Opportunities
September 10th 2023
I was commissioned by Ukie, the UK games industry trade body, to research and write a 90-page report on the current state of esports in the UK for investors, policymakers/Government, regional authorities and the industry.
I spoke to more than 20 industry contacts as well as YouGov to look at the story so far, key data on the market, our strengths and weaknesses and future potential, and I also ran profiles on key companies in UK esports.
9. Esports Awards 2023 nomination
September
This was my highlight of the year. To be shortlisted alongside renowned global journalists including Richard Lewis, James Fudge and Cecilia D’Anastasio was incredibly special, and gave me a much-needed shot of motivation at a pretty demoralising time in esports, where some companies and tournaments were closing.
Richard Lewis was always going to win, but being nominated for the first time and receiving a wave of support from the community meant so much to me. So, thank you!
10. Streams and podcasts
Various
Last but not least, I conduct weekly streams on the Esports News UK Twitch channel talking about UK esports stories and developments.
There’s also the Boomer and Zoomer Esports Podcast Series I run with Hotdrop executive Nathan Edmonds now and then.
And thanks to Ginx TV for inviting me on-air to talk about my background in esports and my top five games of all time.
Finally, I’ve surprised myself – I actually enjoyed working on and growing the Esports News UK TikTok this year. So if you’re a TikToker (and even if you’re not) come and join the party!
Thank you and what’s next
Lastly, without their audience, a journalist is nothing. So, thank you for supporting me, inspiring me and following little old me these past few years.
While I don’t seek out new volunteers for ENUK, I do work with a small number of freelancers and work experience students now and then, so shoutout to the likes of Hannah Marie, Wade Wight, Joshua Sharp, Reece Barrett, Jack Freeman, Will Busfield and others for their help this year.
Now, let’s head into 2024 with optimism and a brave face. I’ve no doubt things will get harder yet in the industry, before they improve. Regardless, I want to wish you all the best year ahead, and I hope to see you all again this time next year.
Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He graduated from Bournemouth University with a 2:1 degree in Multi-Media Journalism in 2007.
As a long-time gamer having first picked up the NES controller in the late ’80s, he has written for a range of publications including GamesTM, Nintendo Official Magazine, industry publication MCV and others. He worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation up until February 2021, when he stepped back to work full-time on Esports News UK and offer esports consultancy and freelance services. Note: Dom still produces the British Esports newsletter on a freelance basis, so our coverage of British Esports is always kept simple – usually just covering the occasional press release – because of this conflict of interest.
