Rule One Founder SunlessKhan On Launching His Community-Focused ‘Rocket League’ Esports Organization

Games Rule One Founder SunlessKhan On Launching His Community-Focused ‘Rocket League’ Esports Organization Max Thielmeyer Contributor Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own. I write about gaming and technology, giving news, insights, and more. Following New! Follow this author to stay notified about their latest stories.

Got it! Nov 3, 2022, 04:55pm EDT | New! Click on the conversation bubble to join the conversation Got it! Share to Facebook Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin Last month, top Rocket League YouTuber and community figure SunlessKhan launched Rule One, a brand new esports organization that exists first and foremost to “entertain and serve the Rocket League community. ” Just a few days after SunlessKhan made the surprise announcement in a way that only he could (nestled ten minutes into a slick video that blends fact and fiction), Rule One signed their first team : up-and-coming title contenders KRN in Rocket League’s Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. SunlessKhan’s compulsion to innovate and desire to draw together the Rocket League community have led to some of the greatest videos and community events in the game’s history, and those feelings are the driving forces behind his brand new esports organization.

Rule One, SunlessKhan and Incivik’s new esports organization. SunlessKhan To hear more about Rule One and understand the vision shared by SunlessKhan and his co-founder, Incivik , I got in touch. Through our conversation, I learned about his commitment to inclusive community events, why Rule One signed the players they did, and what it means to make the jump from community member to esports organization leader.

Max Thielmeyer: How long have you been thinking about building your own organization? A year ago, was this even on your radar? Or has it been simmering for a while? SunlessKhan: It had always been a dream, but nothing more than a dream, an idea. For years, I’ve actually been thinking about it, but the original idea was to bring a bunch of creators together and create our own org in Rocket League. But everyone kind of went their own direction.

I signed to Spacestation Gaming, and some other bigger creators also signed to orgs, so it just never materialized. MORE FOR YOU $100M Magic: Why Bruno Mars And Other Stars Are Ditching Their Managers 10 Things To Know About Stein’s Shepherd’s Huts In Cornwall Anti-Abortion PACs Spent $1. 1 Million In Just Four Weeks Backing Herschel Walker But it was always an idea , for sure, for the last several years.

It didn’t really materialize until I met Incivik and it turned out he wanted to do something like this as well. MT: Could you tell me about your partnership with Incivik and what those initial conversations looked like for starting Rule One? SunlessKhan: I got to know Incivik when he was featured in one of my favorite videos that I’ve ever done on my channel, which was a documentary on Sandrock Gaming , which was his organization. It’s a really compelling story there behind the players he signed and the organization he had created .

. . the moment that MENA was announced as a region for RLCS, then I saw the complete story.

These guys have fought for years, and they’re at the level of EU and NA, but they can’t compete in RLCS. Now there’s an announcement that they can, and there I saw that this would be a great story. I met Incivik through interviewing him for that documentary, and I think that’s how he became interested in working with me as well.

He saw the end product, of course, and the impact that it had on Sandrock’s fanbase. That’s how we met, basically. Sandrock disbanded a few months after the documentary, funnily enough, and I messaged him at that point to see if he was interested in creating another org in the future, just to put out some feelers.

He said he was interested, and it slowly became a reality over the past year. MT: Obviously, it’s really cool to announce the organization and then a few days later announce that you’ve signed a really great team – Could you tell me a little about why you chose this team, and why you’ve branched out into the Middle East and North Africa region first? SunlessKhan: It is a competitive region because there’s only one spot from MENA for RLCS Worlds and for the majors. So it is pretty competitive.

But we weren’t looking for a specific region, we weren’t looking for a specific team, to be honest, we were just looking for the right one to come to us. KRN emerged as a roster that could beat Falcons, the current number one MENA team, that’s historically been the one MENA team. They had a great result against Falcons in the first MENA event, they actually beat the Falcons and already proved that they can compete and are basically the number two, and potentially the number one.

We’ll find out this weekend if they’re going to dethrone the Falcons and take that number one spot for the first major. It was a great fit, they wanted to play for Incivik, part of that was that relationship — Incivik has a great reputation in his own region. We want players who are enthusiastic and want to play for us, and they’re talented.

They have a really great story – there’s two identical twins on the team, which is crazy. So I can’t wait to talk more about that. .

. That’s part of my job in the community, is to build our fanbase, basically. So a bunch of reasons, and they are just the perfect team for us.

MT: So, you announced the org, you signed your team, what’s next? Where are you heading? SunlessKhan: Well, there’s a lot of options! We’re definitely interested in signing content creators, but we also want to work, just in general, with creators and players in the scene. So not just signing, but also running events – not necessarily just tournaments, there’s other creative events that I have in mind that I haven’t put out there yet. Just providing opportunities for people to get together and play, and create content together – or not! Just be able to hang out and be together.

I don’t think there’s enough private lobbies, or enough mingling in the Rocket League scene. So we want to have those regular events, not just tournaments, but casual events that will draw viewers and enable us to invite whoever we want to, whether they’re on our org or not. Down the road, maybe other games.

But for now we’re just focusing on Rocket League. . .

Right now we’re focusing on our team, but anything we can do for the Rocket League community, we want to do. MT: Along the same lines, Rule One’s mission statement is to ‘entertain and serve the Rocket League community’ – what gaps do you see that you’re trying to fill as an organization? SunlessKhan: One of the biggest gaps I think is there’s a casual content gap, where there’s not mingling of different creators. It’s tough.

There’s not enough things happening where we can get the community rubbing shoulders together and playing the game together. So I want to try to run those kind of events. Tournaments are okay, but they’re so focused on skill and so hard to balance and make it entertaining.

Casual events like [ our 24 Hour Rocket League match ] can be more interesting, and can involve more people, and serve more as well. For me, the only entertaining things about watching Rocket League is at the highest level, which we will be competing in RLCS to fulfill that, and the second thing is just being really entertaining, and putting the most entertaining people on the field . .

. that’s the other way to entertain people. We want to be an exciting team that cares about the community.

To run our org with just one game, and one community in mind, at least to start, is kind of a unique thing. There’s not a lot of orgs that are only for Rocket League . So that alone puts us ahead.

MT: As a Rocket League- first organization, was having a name that referenced Rocket League a priority for your team, or was the name Rule One sort of a happy coincidence? SunlessKhan: I wouldn’t say it’s a coincidence, but we weren’t set on a Rocket League name for sure. We had other ideas and they weren’t all Rocket League related at all. We had some random names, for sure.

We didn’t see that as necessary, but once we did have that idea for Rule One, it just kind of stuck. It struck us as a name where you wouldn’t have to know what it is, it just sounds kind of like an org, but it definitely fulfills that idea that we’re here for Rocket League , being a Rocket League inside joke in itself. It really worked out well.

It was a name that we liked, and did have to do with the Rocket League scene, and fit us really well. But it can work for anything, it’s also just a really cool sounding name. MT: As a content creator, you’ve consistently raised the bar with your videos for years, including with your announcement video for Rule One.

Is it difficult to keep things fresh, and avoid the ‘obvious’ video ideas that are strictly skill-based, as you put it? SunlessKhan: That’s the biggest challenge with content creation in general, is making sure you’re always coming up with new stuff and being very intentional about how you’re entertaining your community, making sure that you’re giving them what they want. A big part of that is just knowing what people want, and knowing what’s exciting and what’s entertaining. This whole thing comes from my experience as a content creator and translating that into an organization, and also delivering the excitement and entertainment to the community, but this time from an org.

But that is our biggest challenge as a company – it’s the same thing. It’s very similar in a lot ways, but very different in many ways, too. In a lot of ways it’s the same in that it’s just growing your fanbase.

That’s what being a creator is, you want more viewers so you make really good content to attract viewers. So we’re going to try to be really good in RLCS, going to try to win games and earn prestige that way, and also entertain people through content. MT: It sounds like a very precise balance of differentiation in content, but also ensuring really high quality execution.

Is that something you find is true at the esports org level as well? SunlessKhan : Yeah, yeah. The thing is that anyone can say that they want to do those things, but the execution is a big part of it. I think every org would see themselves as a ‘content-focused org’ or as something that serves the community.

Everything I’ve said is really not that unique, so what I really want to deliver that’s unique is the actual execution in our ideas. That’s what I think will really differentiate us, once we start doing those events, we start showing what we can do, and we’ll start growing our fanbase more and more. That’s when we’ll really start to shine.

Right now we’re in the infancy stages, where people can see what direction we’re going in, and people are excited, which is great, but it’s going to take time to actually grow and deliver something, just like a new content creator on the scene. . .

We’re focusing on doing our jobs and making sure we’re fulfilling our mission – entertaining and serving the community. MT: You’ve been a huge figure in the Rocket League scene for years now, one of the biggest YouTubers in the game, but with starting an esports organization, it’s no longer a channel, it’s a living, breathing business that you have to run. Does this represent to you a shift from ‘Sunless the Community Figure’ to ‘Sunless the Businessperson’? SunlessKhan: It definitely is a shift, and it’s a big step too because, like you said, it’s not just myself anymore, I have to think about my business partner, my coworkers, my players, all that stuff.

So it’s a big shift, and it’s running a business. It’s hugely different. And starting an esports org is probably the most irresponsible, Wild-West type of business you can run [laughing], which is great because it’s not a vast departure from being a content creator, thankfully.

It’s a game that I know, it’s a scene that I know, and a community that I know, so it’s probably the least-risky business that I could have done since it’s already so close to what I do as a content creator. It’s definitely a shift, but it’s not a departure from what I’m already doing, which is nice. And I needed that because I didn’t want to just close down my channel or anything.

I needed to make sure I can still do that, so that was important to me. MT: Speaking of business, Cr1tikal (founder of Moist Esports) recently revealed that he runs his esports organization at a massive net loss, ‘roughly six figures a month. ’ Did that play into your decision founding Rule One, or what do you think your org will do differently? SunlessKhan: I did chuckle a little bit when I saw that tweet, but I can’t say that I’m that surprised.

It’s kind of a funny thing, hearing constantly that ‘esports is a terrible business, orgs have a really terrible time making money, it’s a money pit,’ but I’m going ‘Let’s get into it! This will be exciting!’ [Laughs] It’s definitely a little daunting when you see things like that, but I’m just confident in the way we’re running the business. We’re running it like how I run my YouTube channel; it’s pretty light, and there’s not a lot of overhead. .

. We’re being very careful about how we can have the most impact using our platform – and that’s our most valuable thing. For me, it’s the most valuable thing that I bring to the company, is the audience and fans to the org.

So that’s more valuable than anything we could spend on. That’s what every org wants to have, is fans. We don’t have expectations that we’ll make a ton of money right away, and we’ll operate at a loss for a while, it’s just going to be part of it.

. . We know our challenges but we’re going to do our best to stay lean and not lose $400,000 a month.

[Laughs] We’re also not in a lot of games. I think a lot of [Cr1tikal’s] expenses are probably salaries. .

. We’re in a minor region so our salary impact is probably not quite as much as his. MT: I think being in a minor region may be an advantage to you to draw fans, as your involvement will draw more viewership to the MENA region, and suddenly they also have a team to root for.

Was that part of your decision? SunlessKhan: Yeah, one of the reasons I was so confident in the MENA roster that we signed is because of the support that Falcons had at the major. Not just as underdogs, but they have a real fanbase! They have a huge Western audience. I wasn’t worried about the ability to serve the North American, the European, the Western community, I think we can do that with a MENA team.

It’s funny because some MENA players don’t even speak very good English, but it doesn’t matter because some European or American pros don’t even say anything anyways, they’re just playing! Not every professional is super relatable anyways, so I think people can grow fans just through their play. Pros have the ability to build a fanbase just through winning. It’d be nice to have those personalities, and we want to develop that.

We think our players are interested in that kind of thing, but you can’t force anyone to be a content creator, and Europe and North American teams have problems with that too. So yeah, like you said, I think MENA is great for us. Through our conversation, it’s clear that SunlessKhan has a solid vision for Rule One as an organization that puts the Rocket League community first.

But he also understands that execution is the key to to building any sort of audience, whether it be through content or on-field performance. Rule One’s first chance to prove themselves on-field as a team is this weekend at the RLCS MENA Fall Invitational, which will be broadcast live from November 3 to 5th at Twitch. tv/RocketLeagueMENA .

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