“There’s so much potential” – GAM Esports CEO TK Nguyen on Vietnam’s explosive esports growth and top eight goal at Worlds 2024

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Today, GAM Esports started their journey through the 2024 League of Legends World Championship with a decisive 2-0 victory over Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks Gaming. Among the crowd was a familiar face for fans of the team, TK Nguyen, CEO of GAM Esports.  

In between selfies with fans and content creation in the fan area, Cecilia Ciocchetti asked him to discuss the journey that elevated GAM Esports from a prominent regional representative to an internationally recognised brand. And of course we couldn’t miss the opportunity to ask him about the upcoming changes to the Vietnam Championship Series next year, plus the growth in the region, with the VCS generating solid viewer numbers. His insights offer a glimpse into what the future of Vietnamese esports could be – and the strategies that could drive GAM’s success to the next level.

What does it take to bring a team and a brand in this case, GAM Esports, to the next level from a minor region to the international stage where you have thousands of fans traveling across the globe just to see you in Play-Ins? 

I mean, it’s super exciting, first of all, just to meet the fans and meet people who are just supportive of your team because sometimes when we’re in Vietnam, you don’t really realise the impact that we’re making globally.

So it’s really cool to go to MSI or World and just meet with different people from all over the world. But to get the team to that next level, I mean for us in Vietnam, it’s really about the infrastructure and building that out. So for Vietnam right now, it’s still early stages in a sense. I know that League’s been around for quite some time, but for the infrastructure, for the player welfare and just improving the overall environment and just kind of elevating the standards, it’s still a long way off.

So we’ve been trying to set the tone and set the standard, and I feel like we are very fortunate to have people like captain Levi, who’s been an amazing role model, not just for League, but just as a person in general. 

Not only is he a talented player, he is an amazing captain, really high IQ, and he’s really been able to be kind of the face of our league. And what’s exciting for us is that next year we’re going to be joining the APAC league. We don’t know what it’s going to be officially called yet, but the APAC league will kind of merge all the different leagues in Southeast Asia and Asia in general. So we’re talking about the VCS (Vietnam Championship Series), PCS (Pacific Championship Series), LJL (LoL Japan League) and Oceania.

That’s really exciting to see just the top tier teams, I think coming together and then rising together. I know it’s kind of cheesy, but the whole “rise as one” where we need to have a lot of great players who are contributing to the ecosystem and help elevating and evolving the sport. And it takes a lot of people, from the publishers, the developers, to the teams, the players, and the coaching staff. So it’s a lot of different players that kind of need to step up and help elevate the standards. 

Some felt disappointed by Riot when they saw every single minor region merging into a bigger one, and the individuality of a league that has been established years ago getting lost.

I mean, it depends on how you look at it. I get it. I know that there’s a lot of history with a lot of the leagues that we’re seeing, like CBLOL or even VCS, we’ve been around for 10 years, so for us we see it as an opportunity. An opportunity to be part of the fifth major region in the world.

I think the VCS will still be there, but it’ll be kind of like a second tier league from my understanding. So that could be a place where we’re cultivating the future players of hopefully GAM and things like that. But I think if you take a step back, I get that, from Riot’s standpoint, it’s likely they want to allocate more resources towards this fifth-tier league, as opposed to having 32 teams from those four regions. Now you’re going to be focusing on eight, so I think it provides more sustainability growth opportunities. 

Now, I know there’s things that kind of need to be worked out, but I think certain things that maybe Riot thought would work with the franchise model maybe didn’t pan out the way they wanted. And that’s because they’re doing something that’s never been done before, so LoL Esports in a way is kind of a learning experience. And I do believe that they’re trying, and I do believe that they’re doing their best to provide a great product for the players and the teams. There’s certain things that sometimes we might not see eye to eye on, but in general, I think from GAM’s perspective, it’s like’ Hey, we’re joining the fifth major region. It’s our opportunity to not only represent the VCS but our region and have something new and exciting competing against other people internationally.’

So now we’re going to be moving our team to Taipei, and that’ll be a process on its own, you know of going back and forth. But the goal is to bring esports there and bring that back to Vietnam as well, because in Vietnam there are so many people who just love esports so much. There’s not as much esports entertainment or not as much sports entertainment in general in Vietnam. So I really feel like there’s an opportunity to grow something here. 

What is your view on how Riot is handling the overall VCS scene considering the issues that have been present in the ecosystem for so many years? 

If I were to speak for Vietnam, we understand that they’re going to focus on the four major regions, and we’re a wild card, but I think that over the past few years, especially since I’ve been involved with esports, I’ve seen it growing for Vietnam. So the numbers, the viewership, it’s all there. I had a chance to meet John Needham, the President of Publishing and Esports for Riot at MSI, and I was super excited to just be able to meet him and share some of the enthusiasm, because if you look at the numbers for Vietnam, our viewership is just behind China and Korea.

We’re number three in terms of viewership, I believe, and that’s just organic. So I was telling John and the Riot Global team, I’m like, ‘look, guys, imagine if you guys just put a little bit of your resources towards Vietnam.’ There’s so much potential. There’s so many kids who just love what they’ve created, the culture, the game, kind of like this entire kind of ecosystem in a sense, right? 

(UK caster Alex “Nymaera” Hapgood, who was present during the interview, pointed out that Vietnam has the second largest server in the world for League players.)

See, so the second largest server in the world. So I think that you’re starting to see a shift, and I know that Riot, I’ve been talking to their team, they see more potential in the region, and in business you have to go where the potential is going. You got to see the opportunity before diving in, and I think the opportunity is in Asia, in Southeast Asia especially, because there’s not much there as opposed to other regions. 

I see it with the North America League or even European League, there’s a lot of competition with other sports, other esports. But for Vietnam, we love League and we love what Riot’s been able to do there, and we hope that we’ll see more support from them. And as we kind of build out this league we do it so that it’ll be a multi-generational sport for years to come.

We’re getting there, and I’m not saying I don’t have any complaints and such. There are certain things that could be definitely improved, but we’re seeing progress, and that’s important for us. And that’s the reason why I’m here [at Worlds 2024]. I have multiple businesses, but I love what we’re doing [with GAM]. I feel like we have the opportunity to unite and inspire the young generation, and it’s an opportunity and it’s a privilege for us to be able to do that. But I want to be purposeful with the platform that we have. 

Along with your players, you became the face of the team both domestically and on the international stage, so much that fans coming to the arena from all over the globe stop you to ask for a picture together. How did you start in esports?

So long story short, I’m actually from entertainment nightlife. So I lived in the US, moved to Vietnam 10 years ago, and with the company we built a hospitality group out there: we have a rooftop beach club, we have craft breweries. But when Covid happened, we closed everything down, and I saw it as kind of an opportunity for me to be like, ‘what’s next?’

One of my mentors and business partners had invested into NRG in North America with the intent to bring NRG to Asia. So at first we actually like, ‘Hey, look, NRG doesn’t have a League team, there’s an amazing team in Vietnam. Why don’t we acquire that team?’ And then NRG Asia happened. However, NRG had then acquired an LCS team, so they had to dilute.

But anyways, long story short is that for me, growing up and being in the US, the two things that I missed the most once in Vetnam were concerts and sporting events. In Vietnam, we don’t have anything like this coming from LA – there’s two basketball teams, two football teams, two baseball teams; there’s so much. And in Vietnam, of course, soccer or football is the most popular sport, but we’re not very competitive on the global scene. So even if you look at the Olympics, for example, the last two Olympics, Vietnam got no medals. So it’s a bit discouraging. We’re always the underdog. So anything that we can do and compete on a global scale against these major countries it’s something that excites us and we see a lot of people getting behind it.

So with esports we have so much raw talent, but the question is how do we cultivate it and how do we give them the right infrastructure to help develop these young talents? So in Vietnam, we see the opportunity to grow. 

We’ve been very fortunate to have a lot of people supporting us to be able to represent the VCS on the global stage multiple times. Now, every time we go to these events, I get to meet amazing people.

And I feel very honoured to be able to be with this team and represent our region, uniting and inspiring the youth. And we want to make Vietnam kind of like a known country for esports and gaming for Southeast Asia. And I feel like the opportunity is right there. So as long as we have bigger players like Riot joining, and we’re working with some big conglomerates in Vietnam with the right infrastructure, I really think there’s a ton of opportunity. And the exciting thing is we have the Olympics, Esports Olympics coming, we have the Esports World Cup now happening, we have SEA Games and there’s tons of more esports events happening in the region.

So there’s a lot of opportunity where we are going to have a chance to represent our country, and Vietnam is a super patriotic country, so anything that we can do and go compete and represent people will get behind us. 

So that’s kind of how I got pulled into esports. And I’ve been enjoying the ride, making mistakes and learning along the way, but I hope to just add some energy, some positivity, into this industry. And it’s been a lot of fun. It’s crazy to me that people even recognise me in just random places around the world, but I’m always very thankful and I hope that our team does well here at Worlds.

At the last Worlds in 2023 in Korea, that was the furthest any Vietnamese team has gone from the playing stage to the Swiss stage. Our goal this year is to get into the top eight. So I know it’s not going to be easy, but we’re up for the challenge.

Related article: Interview with Elyoya of Mad Lions Koi – homegrown talent ready to keep proving sceptics wrong at Worlds 2024

Cecilia Ciocchetti

Hi, I’m Cecilia! A freelance writer mainly focusing on League of Legends and its esports scenes. Find me at events interviewing anyone who has a story to tell, from players to the talented people working behind the scenes. Do you also have a story to share? Reach out to me via Twitter.