We’ve talked with Mike Guttilla, head of business at GalaxyRacer to discuss the HerGalaxy Apex Legends tournaments, their future events, and the way forward for woman-identifying esports.

Early rounds have already gotten great viewership on Twitch. Are you happy with the reception, and what do you think has made it click?

It’s been fantastic so far, the numbers speak for themselves. There’s been massive viewership, so kudos to EA for supporting and amplifying the tournament itself. I think from a player perspective we had 500 women register for the tournament. We had over 100 teams funnel through. From a player side, I think it has been great, the feedback has been really positive overall. Whether that’s seasoned vets or players who are playing for the first time in a competition.

I think from a community perspective it’s just fun to see the discourse. A lot of folks talking about the tournament series, a lot of them really hyping up the players and top plays that they see.

For us, it’s also our job to find those moments and amplify them and amplify those players. So far, the reception has been fantastic. The casters who are the face and voice of the broadcast so His and Hers live, they’ve done an amazing job. They’ve really found that right balance of finding those peak, peak moments and really hyping them up but also during the downtime, finding a bit of humour in what’s going on.

We put up a clip this week of them laughing at two of the team’s names that were going up against each other. You kind of take a quick beat, a quick laugh. Then you get right back into it. So overall it’s been awesome to see.

We had to take a moment to appreciate the team names during the #HERGalaxy $100K Apex Legends broadcast! @HisandHersLive really wanted to see Team UWU vs Team Woohoo ? pic.twitter.com/TpYFSuH6ql

— HER GALAXY (@hergalaxygg) May 10, 2023

You’ve mentioned support from EA, would you say better prize pools would be a factor in getting more woman-identifying esports tournaments onto this level?

The way we view it is just from the pie of the player base and improving the quality of play for all players. I think over time what you’ll see from that is just better and better competition. EA has been fantastic.

We kicked off the tournament with a charity creator cup. EA came to the table and donated $40,000 to charity for the event. Financially, on that front, they’ve been amazing. We talk to them if not daily, certainly weekly. Just check-ins, how are things going? Where can we support? They’ve been fantastic.

The question on prize pool is ultimately the reason we came out of the gates so strong with these large prize pools.

• A: It will attract the best of the best players, which we’ve seen in the tournament, so the competition is at a very high level.
• B: It’s going to pull in players who, perhaps play ranked but haven’t taken that step into proper competition yet. Having that chance to really prove yourself and get something meaningful on the back end to show how good you are, you know it’s pulled in a lot of players who are competing in a tournament for their first time.

Fundamentally that financial support is what’s going to allow players to devote more time to practising and improving their craft. We do think having more financial resources, whether it be through prize pools or getting players signed to rosters and being salaried that is what’s ultimately going to make this sustainable

There are some bigger orgs on the roster for HerGalaxy, but also some more unknowns, can you see the growing space for woman-identifying esports teams as somewhere the older names will get into or more of an opportunity for something new?

Frankly, I think it’s both. In the lead-up to the start of our competition, with one org specifically, Luminosity, they signed two women’s Apex teams which are playing in the tournament. Not to say that was done because of our tournament, but the fact that there are now platforms that orgs can attach to and see that direct funnel.

Okay, there are top women playing in this tournament with real prize pools, let’s bring them onto our org for that visibility and brand recognition. Frankly, they’re all business so having that financial benefit of a top team in a tournament makes a ton of sense. We certainly expect and hope to see more of that happening.

For some of the smaller or newer names in this scene, I think it’s a great funnel. It’s a really good opportunity to have a team or a player on your roster compete against the larger names. Right? If things go well, there you go. Your team just beat that one you know really well and they’ll start to become household names. Whether you’re an established team looking to claim the top players in this space or a newer team who is looking for that big break. We do think that this tournament series, this type of format, it allows for both sides of the spectrum to benefit.

A big part of HerGalaxy is that Funnel that you talk about, do you see those future careers in the mainline Apex Legends Global Series or as a separate woman-identifying event?

With the risk of another both answer, I’ll say both.

I see it as building blocks really. I’ve made kind of a wonky analogy in the past. I view HerGalaxy as kind of like in traditional sports. There’s basketball without borders where the NBA invested heavily overseas and created leagues overseas. You know field of dreams, if you build it, they will come. Build out those orgs overseas and they can stay local and keep playing in those tournaments, but I’m sure most children who pick up a basketball have dreamed of playing in the NBA at some point. You do find those diamonds who can move through the ranks and get into the big leagues.

For us, we think that as the competition continues to grow and what we’re seeing is amazing skill in the competition, there will be teams who continue to improve themselves and get to that ALGS. But we also think that there’s a viable ecosystem to have a separate tournament series for women.

If you look at our viewership to date and I think that this will continue to grow over time especially as we head to the grand finals. That will bring sponsorship and allow the women in this tournament to continue to practise, instead of moonlighting as a gamer.

Perhaps you leave that day job or you scale back on that day job. You’re now able, financially, to spend more time in the game and get yourself to the point where you can compete in the ALGS. To me and to our team, that’s where we think the catalyst is to see more women get onto that main stage, it’s having the opportunity from a financial perspective to devote more time to practising and honing your skill and not just make it there but actually make an impact.

Just to go back to EA too, what can we be doing to continue to grow the number of women who take that step into ALGS who can make a splash in ALGS. We’re focused on it, and it’s amazing to have a publisher like EA who are focused on it as well.

HerGalaxy is running events in other games following Apex, how does the support for EA compare to others you’ve worked with so far?

This is our first banner tournament with $100K, we’ve hosted this tournament in Apex now, and previously VALORANT esports, so we’ve chatted with Riot. We’ll be stepping into Rocket League after this tournament series so we’ve had discussions with Epic and Psyonic, on that front. I think to date there’s a true desire by the publishers to build out the scene.

EA has been fantastic, they stepping whenever we need the support, but Psyonic and Epic have been fantastic too. To put on a tournament of this scale you need that licensing agreement from the publishers, and they don’t have to give that. For them to not only allow us to do the tournament series but give support beyond that, I think it speaks to a recognized need within the space more broadly to truly support not just our efforts but ultimately our goal in building out this ecosystem

Your materials for HerGalaxy have some shocking numbers on the people who feel represented in esports, how do we address that?

Yeah. I think there’s a few tangible things to point to. One is just visibility and representation. For us importantly, it’s not just the players, it’s also the casters, right? The voices, the faces that you’re going to see more frequently than the players, I think when you look at the HerGalaxy and Galaxy Racer team as a whole, from a quote unquote corporate perspective, we have that right representation as well.

I think when presenting to the audience, I think of a young girl at home watching, and seeing that hey it’s possible for me to play in a large tournament or I want to be a caster, I can be a caster, right? I think it starts there.

With opening up, giving that hope, and showing that the opportunity path is possible, that’s step one. And then how do you bridge from that to long-term success and repeatability? It’s what we’re doing on our end day in and day out.

It’s going out to brands, going out to potential sponsors and showing them the case studies from these tournaments and saying look there is massive demand for these woman’s events and having them recognise there is some of the stats you know, 50% of gamers identifying as women.

Everyone talks about gaming as being an incredibly interesting space to step in. It’s how you reach Gen Alpha, Gen Z Millennials. If half of them are women, there’s clearly some disconnect here.

Some of that goes back to the representation on screen. Some of it is just education so continuing to educate some of these larger brands so they do step up and provide those financial resources to players. I think over time it’s more and more opportunities.

We truly believe in rising tides, and we love to see other orgs step in host tournaments for women, continue to sign women to their rosters, we at Galaxy Racer have top woman’s rosters for different esports game titles like CS2 esports, and LoL, just to name two. We talk to those pros all the time and they tell us pretty consistently that here aren’t enough opportunities for women to really compete, really make a name for themselves so I think just having that consistently, that steady drumbeat of opportunity is going to go a long way.