The throne of leisure is played between women: make way for the entertainment bosses of the future

Sting grabs the mic and performs a song that resonates in the minds of millions of fans around the world. ‘What could have been’ – one of the main songs of ‘Arcane’, the revelation animated series of the year – is the highlight of the great show of the Game Awards 2021, the most anticipated event by the ‘gamer’ community. ‘Enemy’, also from the series’ soundtrack, opened from the hands of its singers, the group Imagine Dragons, the ‘show’ at the beginning of the final of the ‘League of Legends’ World Cup, an event in e-sports which was held in Iceland this year, in a nod to the European public (usually held in China).

Music, games and audiovisual shows have merged like never before in a transformation process accelerated by the pandemic. The ‘streaming‘and, above all, the mobile phones they have made accessible in a confined world full of restrictions a universe of liberating leisure, experiences that are impossible in a real world and as limited as the one we are left with.

At the top of the business, two companies, Disney and Riot Games, compete for the audience pie with powerful women at the helm., a whole manifestation of what is brewing in the industry and where the shots of the future are going. Let’s start with Disney. Susan ArnoldA senior executive of the company since 2007, as of January 1, she will be Bob Iger’s successor at the helm of the most relevant company in audiovisual entertainment. The global entertainment titan bolstered the business in recent years by embracing the production of Marvel and Star Wars, a move that opened its catalog to wider audiences and adults, which accompany the growth of their child audience and thus strengthen their brand longevity.

The obsession to endure

The sector has suffered from the ups and downs of the audience and their traumatic effects on the income statement for too long and the final blow of the coronavirus was definitive to learn a lesson: enough to peck at niches and in fashions that last as long as they last and not They give stability or growth options. Responsible for companies such as Showtime Network, Neon and Riot Games agreed in a talk organized by Hollywood Reporter in that obsession to endure in times of instability.

That was the context in which Disney probably gave the most decisive step when joining the streaming wars through Disney +. It was in November 2019 (the spring of 2020 in Spain), and television was playing its game for the renewal through HBO, Netflix and other small geolocated proposals. However, the landing of the entertainment giant in the fight for the audience of this type of channels it was probably the lifeline of his business: in just one year operating, had reached 60 million subscribers, While the profit traditionally generated by its amusement parks plummeted Worldwide. The company’s shares fell 22%, dragged down by the consequences of the closure of the parks in 2020, according to ‘Bloomberg’.

Stumble

LDisney + subscription plans have suffered an unforeseen slowdown in 2021Since the 10 million new subscribers they planned to reach have remained at 2.1 million once vaccines have begun to normalize the situation and the online world has ceased to be omnipresent in our lives. But with the amusement parks reopened, and the company’s most ambitious investment commitment for 2022 – with 30,000 million euros only provided for content (8,000 million more than in the previous year) -, the commitment to television, cinema and above all, sports rights, seems a guarantee of success.

So far the X-ray of the Disney plan. However, behind the giant’s new strategy there is more than the appointment of Susan Arnold – a woman from the company’s ‘establishment’ and with previous experience in companies outside the sector, such as McDonald’s and Procter and Gamble – as the first woman to assume a position with such relevance in the world of entertainment. The movement has brought to the surface other values ​​promoted in recent times, such as that of Jennifer Lee, creative director of the Walt Disney Animation Studios division.

The head of diversity at Marvel

Lee is herself a symbol: 46-year-old screenwriter and producer, is the person directly responsible for the success of the movie ‘Frozen’, who not only won the Oscar in 2013, but was the starting pistol of the Disney princess revolution, who renewed their profiles to become from now on women more in line with the reality of size, ambitions and skills of girls and women in real life. The impact of ‘Frozen’ also has its numbers: the film achieved 1,200 million euros in profits only in the year of release, and has become the highest-grossing musical film in history, as well as being the most viewed in the entire world in 2013. Princess Elsa skyrocketed merchandising sales of all kinds of products and led to a sequel that confirmed the success of the formula, ‘Frozen 2’, in 2019.

Another woman, the Argentine Victoria Alonso, is in charge of Marvel Studios. The production company has risen since 2006 in the company that has taken a radical turn in the last two years to become more inclusive and representative of the tastes and diversity of the audience. The 56-year-old executive of the company was promoted to president of production of Marvel Studios three months ago and is behind the phenomenon ‘Eternals’, which opens a new stage of superheroes with a homosexual protagonist and other characters who fight against ageism and disabilities such as deafness.

Riot Games, la aspirante

But the power of Disney may have found a tough competitor, and the ‘Frozen’ princess may feel her throne reeling at the irruption of Jinx, a deranged teenager with blue braids down to her feet who pushes the empire of another American company with a very different parent: Riot Games. Jinx, one of the characters of the most played online video game in history, ‘League of Legends’, is catapulting the company into the ‘mainstream’, which has in its plans to overflow its original niche, e-sports, to jump to the multiverse of entertainment.

To give us an idea: 180 million users around the world were logged in in November alone to play ‘League of Legends’. Where Disney bets on catchy songs, Riot Games has the RiotMusic division, specialized in video game soundtracks and millions of followers on TikTok. The Netflix series ‘Arcane’, which was the first to unseat ‘The Squid Game’ from the world throne and which is set in the video game, has accompanied the phenomenon with singers of the stature of Sting, Imagine Dragons, Woodkid, Bea Miller or Ramsey, while K-pop bands participate in productions that have been made in the Asian sweet tooth market.

Riot Games was founded in 2006 and, just three years later, it was already riding the dollar thanks to the clamor it aroused his video game ‘League of Legends’, the most played on PC and that opened the door to growth in e-sports, its world leagues and its unstoppable business. The fictional universe of Runeterra –a Disneyworld on another scale and without real support– is also fueled by the ‘boom’ for fantasy narrative and science fiction, and has led to a diversification of the product in comics, board games, ‘ merchandising ‘and now television, which will not be the last step.

The company has just rented 200,000 square meters in one of the most exclusive areas of Los Angeles to move its headquarters there in the face of the new expansive challenge that is emerging. Founded by Brandon Beck and Marc Merrill, it is owned by Chinese technology mogul Ma Huateng through his company Tencent Holdings, which specializes in instant messaging, online payments and video games for mobile phones. Merrill has openly exposed the company’s plans to give Disney a surprise based on its two strengths: mobile technology and video games.

For the throne of leisure

In this challenge, Riot Games placed a woman in October, Naz Aletaha –Who already had responsibilities in the company–, at the head of the sports division of ‘League of Legends’, one more piece of the turn towards female talent that already had its turning point in January with the signing of Shauna Spenley as president of the company’s Entertainment division and with command over film, television, music and consumer products that are designed based on the tastes and profiles of the players. Spenley – who comes from the Netflix universe, where he worked for the past decade – has participated in the growth strategy of the television platform’s audience since the bombing of the ‘House of Cards’ series.

Although the base of its consolidated audience is large, the company knows well that, to have options, you must diversify the content and overcome its Achilles heel: an environment that has a very toxic recent past with women. A harassment lawsuit against the company’s CEO has clouded Riot’s image, like so many other video game companies on suspicion of discriminatory treatment towards women. The company is making an effort to implement good practices, as evidenced by having been recognized in the November list of the ‘Financial Times’ as one of the 850 companies in the world with a higher commitment to diversity of gender, ethnicity and sexual orientation in your workforce.

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At the world premiere of ‘Arcane’, which was accompanied by an ‘online’ show with performances and animation previews, the singers moved across a stage that recreated the underground city of Zaun, one of the regions of Runeterra. Who knows if it could end up being turned into a theme park, while Disney plans to bring augmented reality to its parks, in this peculiar fight with a feminine stamp for the throne of the entertainment of the future.