I'm joined by the General Manager and Creative Director of the LA Renegades, Rob "Leonyx" Lee.

Let’s start with your background- what did you do before esports?

I’m from Pittsburgh Pennsylvania- it’s the city of champions- sports culture is integrated throughout that city. It resonated with me growing up. My background is film and television; I’ve done it since highschool, and I’ve done things within the creative arts since I was growing up. It persisted in my college years.

Before esports, I was very much working in the entertainment industry. My backgrounds comes from assisting the creative director for Shaun White and being mentored by Kevin Pereira from ‘Attack of the Show.’ I’ve done many freelance shoots working with like Carrie Underwood and the entertainment industry- I’ve worked with a bunch of people in film, television and internet.

I kind of fell into esports…

I think most of the people weren’t actively seeking for it- I kind of did but what really got my foot in my door was just doing it. I just fell into the role.

What pulled you into the esports scene?

I think that there is something magical here in esports that hasn’t been tapped into. Outside of this, I really think esports’ context is one of the most powerful things in our industry.

You can watch a game- be it League of Legends, Halo or Starcraft- and just knowing the context of what a player brings, what he’s playing for- and what’s on the line. Those are the things that make esports.

Just by knowing the players and where they come from, you can enjoy the matches without actually understanding the inner workings of the games.

Doublelift is the easy example. Just by knowing the cookie-cutter game boy story- this stuff is just straight out of Hollywood. This guy gets kicked out of his bedroom of his parents house and becomes one of the most well known figures in all of esports. That’s powerful in itself.

Just by discovering all those different stories with each player- it’s all in how you deliver it.

How did you end up working for professional gaming organizations?

A lot of my stepping stones for getting into different teams were just pure coincidence. I got out there and just really just DID IT.

I was working with Kevin Pereira for G4 and we all went out to a burger joint. Burger joints are a very common theme in my career because pretty much every single time I go to one it’s a stepping stone forward, because that’s also how I met Chris Badawi.

The first time, I ran into the owner of SK Gaming and  said, “You work in video content and you were at E3,” and he just so happened to need video content. We put together coverage packages for him and that’s how I started working with SK. I began as a host because my mentor was Kevin, and he did podcasts. We covered events and stuff for SK. That opened the doors to other teams that needed content.

There was Liquid where I worked a little bit on Rebirth with Damian [Estrada]. He was the main creator of that, but I definitely had a hand in helping him out.

One thing led to another and I knew that SK was looking for expansion, so I thought “what if I asked Alex Ich” because he was in NA and I was good friends with Alex. I just wanted to make sure he succeeded as a person because he had a wife and kid. I just wanted to help the guy. I told him if he doesn’t have a team in six months, let's get together.

Six months down the road, after freelance work with SK and TL and various projects throughout the esports community, I ran into Chris Badawi. He was putting together a team called Misfits. i had never met the guy, or so I thought. I asked him when he was in LA to get together. I asked him to go to this burger joint, and I found out that we met before at the same Burger joint. TL’s Damien had his birthday party, and we sat right next to each other and we didn’t even know. It was all coincidental. We didn’t know all of this until afterwards. We were like “Holy Sh*t, It was meant to be.”

Misfits took off, Montecristo joined and Renegades became a thing.

Renegades celebrate LCS Qualification via Leonyx  

Can you go more in detail about your relationship with Alex?

So, believe it or not, how I got Alex Ich’s attention and became friends with him? I just went on his stream and dropped him a hundred bucks on stream. It just pops up “HEY, WOULD YOU WANT TO DO AN INTERVIEW? I WOULD LOVE TO DO AN INTERVIEW WITH THE LEGENDARY ALEX ICH!” and he said alright. That was our introduction. Things started to hit off from there. I understood his situation. I didn’t see why all these teams like CLG, C9 and TL were looking for mid laners, but weren’t looking at Alex Ich.

So it just started as throwing money at his computer…

Let’s talk about the birth of the Renegades brand…

The actual inception of Renegades is Montecristo’s passion project. It’s my understanding that he’s always wanted to do this. I kind of put that idea into fruition and made it OURS.

He wanted to be Renegades and put Los Angeles in there for those endemic sponsors, but that’s his baby. He loves that ethos and what we created was just ours. The cowboy with the bandana is his creation in his collaboration with WME and our agency.

It’s not exactly the traditional brand of esports- it actually takes a take from traditional sports.

How did you come up with the idea to use the bandanas on social media?

The idea of the bandana was always teased like “that’d be funny. The original idea was like “The Terrible Towel” from the Steelers in my hometown. We can really sell this “have an audience swing red clothes” thing- it’s genius. How many people really cheer for the sub-culture?

The original idea for the bandana was super troll. We actually didn’t think of the repercussions because we were just announcing the Renegades as a team. I like to mess with the community- it causes hype and it causes rage. Funny shit tends to happen.

I told R.F. to change his picture to one of him with a bandana. He changed it, got rid of Misfits in his bio and tweeted some bullshit Kha’Zix quote about how change is good. It took off! It went to the front page of Reddit.

People were getting super salty about it. I explained it to Crumbz and he bet me that I couldn't get Monte to do it. I told Monte, and he said, “We can’t let Crumbz win,” so he did it in the exact shape of the logo we created. It’s the exact position of the actual Renegades logo. It’s very much his baby.

People thought Alex was leaving Misfits and joining C9 or some shit. Then, Renegades was born.

The first image someone sent us was like a gnome from World of Warcraft with a red bandana.

People started to post, “I’m a Renegade TOO!” The bandanas we used was like the equivalent of an olive garden napkin. People sent us pictures with different bandanas saying that they support this. Sometimes they would send us pictures with the bandana painted in. I remember Doa painted it over his regular picture and it was fantastic.

We were just milking this thing! I retweeted every bandana selfie,  I made the announcement video and put them in the video. Everyone loved it and was excited to be in the video.

RF Legendary sports the trademark bandana - Renegades

Your first offical video was paired beautifully with the actual song “Renegades” What went into making that video?

The Renegades song was just a happy accident for us. It came out at the same time as all this was going down. It was like “Holy shit! This is too perfect for this shit to fail.”

Badawi had the dumbest f*cking ideas; he wanted to make our announcement video a parody of “I’m a Siren” so like “I’m a Renegade!” (flamboyantly) I just told Chris we can’t do this. I told him not to worry about it.

OGN hype intros are really good, ours is a little bit campy, the bandana is golden- why not shoot a little b-roll and show them what we’re doing around the house. It really captured the tone and atmosphere of our team, and a lot of people loved it.

Everyone thought Badawi paid out of pocket for the rights to the song. There’s a lot of negative stigmatism for content creators to use copyrighted material. A good content creator would use all the tools available to make good content. Obviously the song was really good at the time. How badass is “living life like a Renegade?”

We just let Youtube monetize it so the artist gets the money back. We don’t think monetizing Youtube is a big deal to us. If I’m allowed to use all the tools in our arsenal, I’m gonna f*ckin do it. I’m not doing it out of spite for whoever- it’s just good. It looks good, it sounds good. Some content creators are jaded by that. If it looks right and it feels right then do it because it IS right. It’s not like we’re stealing.

How did the Christmas video come together?

I was requested to do a Christmas video before the CS-GO guys went away. Chris said we needed a Christmas commercial... I just shot a video in the style and tone of those Old Spice commercial, but written for each of the players dicking on each other about their games. The guys always rip on each other’s games- it’s all in good fun. I just think it’s hilarious that Monte would pop in there and say, “it doesn’t matter if we win or lose, as long as I look good.” I think that’s funny and everyone got a kick out of it. It created a community that was not just their game’s fans; it was fans that love the Renegades. I want to create a subculture. We want you to be apart of our family, not just as a fan of one of our players.

Everyone knew Freeze would be playing for Renegades. Why was your late announcement video so popular?  

For me, as a content creator and a filmmaker, Freeze’s video wasn’t difficult. I go on time and time again about the power of context and what story that player brings. When have you ever seen an OGN hype video in NA because we don’t take this shit seriously. When it happens to us, it shock and awe's us. I just think there’s a lot of opportunity for growth of content in our space that hasn’t been harnessed properly.

This video was successful because people haven’t seen that before. It’s “new", It’s like going into a Star Wars movie knowing what’s probably gonna happen, but once you actually see it, you’re amazed.

Can you explain the idea to use Mr. Freeze as a teaser?

That was me. (Laughs) I was going to tweet out different gifs of Freeze. Everyone already knew because my players pretty much leaked it themselves. Once we knew that contextual information, we just played with it. Who cares? It was already obvious. We were just gonna have fun with the community by tweeting capital letters that spelled out Freeze.

How would you describe your role as General Manager and Creative Director?

You already know about my work just by seeing the brand- the graphics and everything that blew up. I hate when people exaggerate and say they’re a jack of all trades- but I’m literally the jack of all trades when it comes to that. That’s why I have my position. It’s been a ride. I was very fond of players and was interviewing people at the time. I’m a guy that is generally interested in people and where they come from. I took that role when Badawi needed me.

They really are all Misfits. They needed assistance in their own individual ways. I try to be there for  the players and to accommodate. That’s what I do and that’s what I have done. Not only team acquisition, sponsorship acquisition and all the good ol’ fun general manager roles. I try to take as much off the plate of Badawi and Monte as possible. They handle the bigger things and I kind of sort through everything that’s bad and deliver what’s left to the top.

I also communicate with my League team and CS:GO team.

What are your expectations for the League team in the LCS?

They definitely earned their spot. That is my agreement with the team; we’re not going to make any roster changes. This is their earned spot and that’s theirs for an entire split. If you don’t show up, then that’s something we will discuss for the next season. If they got there on their own merit and they earned it, then why not? That’s a risk that we’re willing to take. We trust our players’ loyalty and they’re very much like family. We got a long road ahead of us. This will be the most competitive season NA has seen.

How has the branding competition been, considering all the new venture capital teams?

To be honest, I don’t think there is any competition, at the moment. Those other teams have had to focus on their infrastructure and building their team from the ground up. We had the opportunity to develop our brand and have powerful names behind it. I don’t think there’s any competition until they somehow hire JJ Abrams to run the content at NRG. I work freelance for NRG. I help them out, but it’s very much their own ethos. It’s not my baby, it’s me helping them deliver.

Final thoughts?

I very much love when people Behind the Scenes get credit for their work. Sure, we’re not on the other side of the lens, but we really appreciate all the little comments about how great our content is. The positive comments go a long way. We try to give the fans exactly what they want and deliver in a timely manner. Also, here is the obvious Alphadraft plugin by Thorin and getting that mad skrilla. That’s our only sponsor right now. I

If anyone wants to get involved in esports, then get involved and do it. You have to create that opportunity for yourself.

You can follow @Leonyx and @Renegades on Twitter. You can also join Leonyx at twitch.tv/robleonyx 

If you enjoyed this content, follow the author at @ESHSmitty.

The LA Renegades take on Team Liquid on Saturday, January 16.