We are back baby!
As mentioned in my post on the interview with Mirage Scouts Véronique Bouffard, I was awaiting a response from the CEO/Founder of the Northern Arena, Carl-Edwin Michel. And as promised, once he would get back to me, I would share the conversation we had with you. As explained to Carl-Edwin, I could have just used the press release and that would have been the end of it, but I wanted to know more on How the partnership started and how the creation of the Mirage Scouts came about, and of course what had been the impact of the pandemic on the Northern Arena operations.
Q. Knowing the Sailors Scouts it was great to see that this partnership coming to fruition, as there is not enough female representation in the world of esports. The gaming world is a worldwide phenomenon and as the society asks for openness and inclusion, shouldn’t the gaming world should not be the spearhead of that change?
R. You have been following the Northern Arena from day one, so you know what we have gone through, the highs and the lows, and you remember in the beginning, I tried different style of match-up of CSGO tournament, all female, hybrid, even Stephanie Harvey had participated, but it was hard, and we needed to to do something more, to take some real action, not just posting on social media that we support this and that, but to take real actions. So when we were contacted by an all female R6 team that wanted to compete under the Mirage banner, I said okay, so we now have a female team, but how can we push this further. I had been in discussion with Vero, since 2019 and it was the perfect opportunity to have them join the ranks.
Q. Toxicity, is a known scourge in social media and the gaming world is not immune to it, as many professional teams now include include a sport psychologist as part of the support team, is this something that is currently available for the Mirage and Mirage Scouts?
R. Right, to me the term support is very important, if we go back to Veronique and the team, the girls could have continued the way they were doing things and they would have been fine, but what I offered them was first, financial support, these girls were not being paid for that and many had multiples jobs to pay for equipment, travel, lodging and registration fees for tournaments, by offering financial support, they can cut down on the number s of jobs they have and spend more time on doing what they enjoy. The coach and coaching staff is also another way we could provide support for them. Currently the Mirage and the Mirage Scouts Rainbow Six Siege teams shares the same coaching staff. Regarding the sport psychologist, we currently do not have one but it is something that we want to had to our support staff. To put everything in perspective, I purchased Mirage in 2019, then we all got hit by the pandemic and most everything came to a stop. In 2021 we joined the Rainbow Six North American league, so now this are more serious and we are working on adding members to the support staff in different areas.
Q. How goes the integration of the Mirage Scouts with Mirage?
R. At first I think it was just a normal reflex of the guys to say “Okay, cool so now the girl team will do there thing and we’ll do ours”, I am working on changing that thought pattern, that we are a team and the only way to differentiate them is the name.
Q. Speaking of the name, how did it come to be Mirage Scouts?
R. At first I wanted them to be called Mirage as well, just to ensure that everyone understood that it was a single entity, but we noticed a trend in esport, where the teams have a slightly different name for the female team, like CLG RED. So at first we said do we just choose a different color for the name also or in keeping the Sailors Scouts identity, why not just keep Scouts, this idea was share with the team, there were many discussions on the subject, so in the end we decided with Veronique to keep the word Scouts, use the Mirage Logo and use the Sailor Scouts colors scheme to keep the legacy. Now we are in the final steps of the full integration of the team, including the support staff, social media and the rest, so that there is a cohesion.
Q. As everything got stop by the pandemic, the tournament that were to take place, will they start again soon?
R. In the last few months we have been in discussion with TELUS, as they are now a large partner with as was Bell in the beginning, now with TELUS they are very supportive and we share the same vision. Northern Arena is actually separated in 3 divisions, one is for tournament and events, one is for the broadcasting production, as we currently 4 television shows, one YouTube channel ” The Leaderboard” and last but not least, Mirage and Mirage Scouts, and right now I am putting a lot of energy in it as, this might sound cheesy, but I want that team to be the Montreal Canadiens of esport, most people don’t know that I am from Montreal and it is important to me that the team has a physical presence in Quebec.
Q. The Scouts already had an Overwatch team and now with the addition of the R6 team and Veronique had told me about Valorant, besides that, are there plan to add any other games or teams to the roster? Since the current selection is mostly shooters are there plans to mix it up with other type?
R. First it must be understood that Mirage is a professional team, and we need all members to competition at that level, the current cost of an Overwatch franchise is 60 millions dollars, I am nowhere near that, so we will work on other ones that we can participate and be competitive, right now Riot Games is the only publisher that offer a matching prize pool for both the male and female competition in the $50k. For Rocket League, I said to them it would be cool to have an all female or even a mixed team, but there is still work that needs to be done as even the guys are so used to think only male, that to change that mentality will take time and effort.
There are more news to come soon from the Northern Arena, keep an eye out.