Brittany Lattanzio, Senior Talent Manager at Team Liquid
IN WHO GOT GAME’S CAREER SPOTLIGHT, THE*GAMEHERS TEAM INTERVIEWS WOMEN WHO HAVE FOUND OR CREATED WORK WITHIN THE GAMING INDUSTRY (OR ADJACENT TECH INDUSTRIES) IN AREAS OUTSIDE OF PLAYING, STREAMING, OR COMPETING.
This week we make a bit of an exception to that convention by featuring a professional who is up close and personal with Team Liquid, a world-renowned professional esports organization, with over 60 championship caliber athletes in 14 of the world’s top games. Brittany Lattanzio is Team Liquid’s Senior Talent Manager. She took some time to share a bit about her job and her perspective on the esports industry, and the future of women in gaming.
Brittany Lattanzio, photo courtesy of the subject
Thank you so much for taking some time to share with us about your career and perspective. As the Senior Talent Manager for Team Liquid, what do you do on a daily basis?
One thing I like about my role is that each day is different! Overall, Talent Managers at Team Liquid are responsible for managing player branding. What that means is that I work with Team Liquid players on building their stream presence, their YouTube content, and their social media channels. The extent of this varies from team to team, from player to player (since Team Liquid players have a number of responsibilities on a day-to-day basis), but I essentially support the players with everything outside of the competitive aspect of their careers.
Did you always know you wanted to work in gaming or esports? How did you make your way to your current position?
I had no intention of working in gaming -- I have always loved games, but esports was not really a thing in the Western world when I began my postsecondary studies. During my final year of undergrad, I discovered a game called StarCraft II and found out that there was an entire community of people who played the game at a professional level. Professional matches and even their practices were live streamed to a platform called justin.tv. I became a regular lurker on teamliquid.net -- the best website for all StarCraft news and match analysis of course -- and an avid fan of Liquid’s StarCraft II team. That’s where it started for me!
While I was completing my MA at the University of Toronto, I found out the NASL Season 3 Finals were being hosted in Toronto. I was ecstatic! This was my first live esports event and the first time I could see the pros live in action. At this event, the Collegiate StarLeague was hosting their grand finals. I learned they were looking for volunteers, and having just completed my MA I was looking for something to do while polishing my PhD applications. I got hired as an admin assistant, worked my way up through the org, met and networked with others in the industry, and eventually was hired part time by Team Curse in 2014, and the rest is history!
As a senior talent manager, what kinds of skills do you think you use most? What experiences in your career prepared you for this role?
The skills I use most are communication, organization, and empathy. I would say that academia prepared me for my role quite easily; I studied Philosophy, so while there pretty much no overlaps in content between that and esports or even with Talent Management, really, the passive skills that you learn such as research, identifying key pieces of information, understanding another person’s perspective, listening, organizing and presenting your own opinions in a logical way, how best to communicate what you intend to say or do, etc. are valuable skills in any career and in interpersonal relationships. Empathy is a skill that is super important when dealing with humans in general. Players have a lot of pressure on them that most people would not experience, so we have to be able to grasp where they are coming from emotionally and respect that in order to get the best out of them.
What is the best part of your job?
The best part of my job is working with the players. I get to know them and who they are as I work with them, and this helps with the fun creative aspects of my job -- coming up with content ideas or suggestions for them to improve their own brand and their external communication. It’s really cool to be a part of their growth as professionals but also as people. Team Liquid takes both of these qualities seriously when choosing players to represent our organization, so working with top notch players makes me love my job even more!
If someone in our gameHERs community wanted to get involved professionally in esports in a job outside of personally competing, what steps would you advise them to take?
I always advise people who want to break into esports to think about what they WANT to do, and what value they can add to the scene. I get a lot of people who write to me asking for an internship or a part-time job and when I ask them what they want to do, they say “anything.” That doesn’t help me find something that a) you are passionate about, b) you have any desire to learn about or improve on, or c) let me know how I can even mentor you to achieve YOUR goals. It’s also helpful to list out the skills and qualities you have that add value. Try to think about what you want to do (player management? Writing? Statistics? Analysis? Coaching? Sales? Communications? Design? Social Media? There are so many options!) and then list the ways in which your skills and experience lend to your interests. Then, put your name out there and get involved!
How does being a talent manager for an esports team differ from being a talent manager in other industries? How is it similar to other industries?
I think the difference with talent managing an esports team is that players who are signed by Team Liquid are signed as professional gamers first, and they are very good at what they do. With that comes a number of other priorities than their brand at times. As I mentioned, there is a lot of pressure on the players to perform, practice, and be at the top of their mental game, and that often means that public branding or content kind of falls to the side. We are seeing this shift more and more as esports grows and the personalities come more into the spotlight -- indeed, this is why the Talent Management role now exists at our org where it didn’t before. Talent Management in esports is similar to other industries because at the end of the day, we are all dealing with public figures who want to present a certain image that we need to be conscientious of, and how they use their voice and their platforms does matter.
At the*gameHERs, our focus is on women, nonbinary folks, and people of marginalized genders who are gamers or gaming professionals. What challenges do you think women face within the world of professional esports?
It’s a tough question to speak to. From my perspective, mentorship and representation is important for minority groups in any space. Right now, there are not as many women in leadership positions within the industry so mentorship is difficult to find (though this is slowly changing). Additionally, women who are currently finding success in the esports space are often placed under a microscope by the wider community and are pressured by the community to “prove themselves” in the space; their success in the minds of some members of the community is an indicator of whether women as a whole “fit” in the space. I think that these are additional challenges faced by women in the world of professional esports.
As someone who has worked in professional gaming for a long time, what shifts have you seen when it comes to how women and girls are included, featured, or spoken about?
The esports industry is certainly more inclusive than it was when I first joined the scene, however it is not all the way there yet. There are three shifts I’ve seen that I believe are impactful: one, we have more women competitors and content creators, and more women working behind the scenes in esports. Two, I do think the general community is becoming more accepting and less tolerant of bullying and harassment (though again, it is not all the way there yet). As we grow up and teach the next generation that being kind is cool and provide them with positive role models, hopefully this helps make the community even more accepting and positive. Three, we have a lot of communities like [the*gameHERs] that offer guidance and mentorship to women and girls to help all of us feel like we have a support network who is cheering for us and running alongside us.
What do you see as the future for women in the gaming industry?
I am optimistic about the future of women in the gaming industry. As I touched on above, having people who are spotlighting the many amazing accomplishments of women in this industry and cheering for them will be so important. I’m grateful to be a part of this industry, and while we do have strides to make, I’m glad I will be around to see these positive changes and I hope I can help contribute to its progression.
Follow Brittany on Twitter @_JunoTheCat
and check out teamliquid.com for updates on everything Team Liquid!
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