Recently Moist x Moguls have been on an incredible run, cleanly taking first in split 2 and in good position for playoffs. In my opinion the best case scenario for Americas is MxM ascending to franchising. Here's why...

...but first...

How do challengers teams ascend?

Incase you don't know already, here's a quick rundown of the Ascension system. In Americas, there are four challengers leagues. At the end of the regular season, 2 teams from North America, 2 teams from Brazil, 1 team from North Latin America and 1 team from South Latin America all come together for an Ascension LAN. The winner from this event joins the Americas League in 2024, and guaranteed partnership until at least 2025. For the rest of this post I will only be focusing on NA, not that I think the other regions don't matter, but because I haven't watched them play. I'm excited to see how they will fair in Ascension nonetheless.

Who's leading NA Challengers?

If your reading this it's entirely possible you haven't watched a minute of NA Challengers, so if you haven't, here's a super quick rundown. There are 12 teams in NA, but 4 have already been eliminated at the time of this post. Remaining are FaZe, G2, M80, Moist x Moguls, Oxygen Esports, Shopify Rebellion, The Guard and TSM. The front runners being M80, The Guard and Moist x Moguls. Of these 8 teams only 2 can proceed to the Ascension Tournament.

Moist x Moguls?

As ridiculous as the name may sound, these guys have proven themselves to be real contenders. Previously known as Breakthru, MxM is a joint venture of Moist Esports, owned by Charlie "MoistCr1TiKaL" (also known as penguinz0) and Mogul Moves (the company) owned by Ludwig Ahgren. If you have no idea who these two are, that's fine, just know they are very influential content creators in the gaming space.

Recently, MxM are on a hot streak, going on a 5-0 run, leaving The Guard, FaZe and G2 in their wake. I can confidently say MxM are one of, if not the fastest improving team in NA Challengers. From losing to G2 in the mid season invitational to being in the complete opposite situation of G2, undefeated in Split 2, this team has been fun to watch.

....

Why Moist Moguls?

(This section is mostly opinionated. Most of what I say here IS speculative)

The topic of this post, Why is MxM getting to franchising good for the esport as a whole?

MxM's matches are by far the most watched in Challengers. With Charlie, Ludwig and Tarik doing watch parties for almost every map MxM are carrying viewership, peaking at nearly 137,000 in Split 2.

The Model is Genius, and it's working...

While Ludwig and Charlie have very publicly stated that they are operating at a net loss, they've also made it clear that they're in it for the long run. On top of that, I really think if they aren't already close to being profitable, they will be soon. Ludwig has stated he wants to get sponsorships for the watch parties so that he can continue doing this and keep their players salaries healthy, which I think will end up working in the long run. More than anything the biggest investment going for Ludwig and Charlie is the exposure value of these streams. While I don't have direct analytics to back this up, it can be logically assumes that this venture has given Ludwig and Charlie quite a bit of exposure to the Valorant Esports community and all of it's subsidiaries. People who otherwise wouldn't know who they are, do, because they own a team who's been making waves in Challengers. For content creators like Ludwig especially, having these types of ventures is extremely valuable. It's a weekly segment for him to entertain his chat (community) with. The simplest analogy I can make is say you have a robotic dog that just prints money constantly, but it needs constant attention, and after tossing the ball for the 50th time you might need to think of something new. For Ludwig and Charlie, VCT is a new shiny object, and a pretty good one at that.

So what is to be said about the content creator org model? Put simply, react content is king. Watching your favorite team play on matchday is fun, but add you favorite content creator in the top right corner and it gets even more engaging. Additionally, with a large figure like Tarik, who is a legend in FPS space, you end up with an really engaging experience. Don't believe me? Just check Tarik's viewer numbers on any given matchday. Even when he's not watching MxM or Sentinels he'll carry more viewers than the main streams themselves. I truly think this is the future of watching and catering esports.

Franchised teams are basically printing money (Ex. the Sao Paulo bundle made nearly $10m directly for franchised teams). More funding for these teams means a more engaging experience for fans. if MxM, more specifically Moist Esports continue to expand it can only be good for the esports scene. I also firmly believe content creators just have a better understanding of how to use money for the betterment of the content. And if you really think about it it's so obvious why it simply works better. If you're an esports Org with multiple teams in different esports your fans are inherently going to be divided by what esport they're interested in. And yes, with orgs such as FaZe you're going to have that close circle of fans who are invested in the orgs themselves rather than just the players, but this pales in comparison to the tight nit nature of communities fostered by Charlie and Ludwig. This is exactly what I think the optimal model for an esports org should be. When you're fans are more invested into the org than the individual player this makes for a healthier and more stable community presence. It's not too uncommon for players to leave esports teams and for their fans to just jump ship with them. For Moist I feel like the same doesn't apply nearly as much. If MxM can reach Franchising I theorize they will have a true bastion of a fanbase.

M80? FaZe? G2? The Guard?

In a perfect world I'd love for some of these teams to be in franchising, especially with the size of the orgs backing them. But I can't look past the opportunity MxM present.