Geoff Moore serves as President and COO of Envy Gaming. They’re a top esports franchise, fielding teams competing in a number different competitions. He’s also got a background in traditional sports – sort of. Moore was the first Dallas employee hired by the Stars and was part of the group that worked help an unfamiliar game catch on. He then moved to the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, where he had the task selling the not-as-popular-here-as-in-other-parts-of-the-world Formula One brand of automobile racing.
So while he has worked on what we think of as mainstream sports categories, he and his colleagues had to approach them in out-of-the-box ways. He now has to do the same with esports.
I caught up with Moore, whom I’ve known for almost two decades at a re-launch event for a group called the Dallas Influencers in Sports and Entertainment. Moore served as keynote speaker, educating an audience of professionals working in the sports and entertainment fields about why they might want to pay attention esports even as they continue to work their baseball, soccer, basketball businesses.
He was an appropriate speaker because the event itself re-launched a group formerly known as the Heart of Dallas Young Professionals. They’ve broadened their focus, including reaching to people like Geoff and I who’ve been in the business long enough to know someone for close to 20 years. In the video interview that accompanies this piece, Moore explained why re-thinking sports is sometimes important for anyone in the industry.