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The Fraglíder news portal was born in 1999 to follow the Counter-Strike video game and the national and international competitions that surround it, reaching 2020 with “800 to 900 thousand visits” per month, the director tells Lusa.
Initially recognized for its coverage of Counter: Strike tournaments and games, Fraglíder, states in his presentation, “has become the largest and most respected esports community in Portugal.”
It currently covers several video games and, after a pause of almost two years, ended in 2011, it presents numbers without ‘rival’ in the national scene, as explained to Lusa Hugo Pereira, who has been in charge of the project for four years.
Born in Braga, he has always been interested in the competitive aspect, and especially because of Counter: Strike, today in the Global Offensive version, a ‘shooter’ that opened the doors of the career that he now pursues.
When he finished high school, he says, he decided to stop a year, and as “time was not short” he ended up offering a transcript of an interview for an international player.
The most recent of the @Fraglider is 🆙
A situation that I have followed in recent days and that several sources have confirmed.
There may be future updates on this case, stay tuned. https://t.co/pKD683ot7g
– Hugo Pereira (@fragkazac) December 19, 2020
“João Ferreira, who was in charge of Fraglíder, became interested and called me to write for the ‘website’. After more than seven years, here we are, now in charge of the project, since the end of 2016 ”, he recalls.
At the age of 25 he leads a project that, “monthly”, reaches from 30 to 40 thousand unique visitors, with an average of around 900 thousand pages per month, and with a law degree, which he left to dedicate himself full time to El ‘website’, frozen, while studying journalism “goes through the plans” but at a time when I do not have to reconcile studies with work.
He is the only one ‘full time’ on the project, who has a couple more collaborators, and when he ‘picked up’ the ‘website’ he saw ‘the need to expand’ to more than CS.
Today, “Fraglider never covered as many games as he does,” although “the main focus” is still on the ‘veteran’ of competitive video games.
“I decided to bet on FIFA at some point, and it was a winning bet. Who wants to be informed about FIFA, we are the reference. (…) There is always pressure from the community, but we have a team of at most five people, and in writing there are three of us. If we don’t cover a certain game, it’s not because we don’t want to, it’s because it’s not viable, ”he shoots.
the @GTZBulls They are the champions of the 1st edition in the Circuit @letsRETAKE!
19:16 and 16:06 wins against @BaeconGG give the team the title @StepaGG.
📊, Demos and VOD available soon at https://t.co/7i39R9rQWs
Coverage: https://t.co/1Ew4Jr0Sgj pic.twitter.com/tXDa79dgeo
– Fraglider (@Fraglider) December 20, 2020
If “Fraglíder, in its genesis, has always been a reference space for CS, but never only for CS”, expansion to other video games occurs only when they can understand it, first, and guarantee regular monitoring, later.
The business model is based on opinions and interaction, which then becomes the negotiation “of this exposure with the brands”.
Now, they are working to “reconquer the community” of League of Legends, another of the main market focuses in the sector, and these “controlled steps” are being taken to maintain the idea that “when a person thinks about esports in Portugal , one of the first things that comes to mind is Fraglíder ”.
Asked about the evolution of the market in Portugal, the director of the news portal sees the country “lagging behind other countries”, although it grows “from year to year”.
The main difference for other stronger countries in the market, such as Spain, with “a completely surreal growth” in the last five years, is “the support of large infrastructures” and brands, which provide funds that allow this expansion.
Resume on @FPFeFootball Christmas challenge for your day 2!
There are 16 players left in the competition seeking victory in the 2nd FPF circuit competition for FIFA 21.
You can review all of yesterday’s results and follow the qualifiers at https://t.co/YT7ccIpu99 pic.twitter.com/hFil1goLkj
– Fraglider (@Fraglider) December 20, 2020
Vodafone’s support for the Spanish Giants team, with several Portuguese in the squad, is one million euros per year, through ‘naming’, according to the agreement made in 2018. “One million, for any organization in Portugal, arrived and it was left over ”, he comments.
In Portugal, he says, most teams “are losing money, you know,” because “they still have no way of turning their assets into something profitable.”
Sponsorships “are still not enough”, they even grow every year, something that also happens to the public, to the views of tournaments and associated content, and to the interest of sports clubs.
“Electronic sports, not being a sport, are something whose target audience is quite young. There will be no sport in the world with a similar target audience. (…) UEFA realized this and is involved in esports because it believes in the potential to reach the masses. There are those who follow esports and do not follow football ”, he exemplifies.
Going “to find an audience from Spain or Brazil, who have the same language”, is another of the “recipes” for success that he points out, recalling that “there was never a round of funding” by organizations in Portugal, something that happens ” many in Spain “.
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