Esports host and voice actor Britanni Johnson has launched TVRN, a talent-sourcing platform in the gaming space that aims to open up the talent booking process.
TVRN will allow broadcast talent to sign up for the platform and present their profile to prospective employers, while companies looking to find the best talent for their broadcasts will be able to sign up and browse through the talent before reaching out to hire them.
“I have felt my frustrations with the process for talent to find work for a while now,” said Johnson. “One day I was speaking on a panel and someone asked ‘I want to be a host and I know I need an agent to get the jobs I want, however, I don’t know where to go to find the jobs to build my resume to get an agent. Do you have any recommendations?’ Let me tell you how terrible it felt to suggest that they follow the right people on Twitter and keep an eye out for posts… It shouldn’t have to be that way! I left that panel so hurt that I couldn’t provide more of a process that I decided we couldn’t wait for someone to build it, I just needed to do it myself.”
Despite there being a massive variety of broadcasts happening daily in the esports and gaming space, it always seems to be the same group of talent that appears across them all, thanks to the fact they have good relationships with hiring companies already. However, TVRN hopes to change this by giving new talent a platform to showcase themselves to some of the biggest companies in the space. Already the likes of Riot Games, Epic Games and 343 Industries have signed up to the platform.
“Who you know is the nature of any business, however, that’s essentially the only way it works right now in gaming and esports and that should never be the case,” said Johnson. “TVRN will definitely solve this problem and provide solutions to both the talent and industry side of the business.”
For talent signing up to the platform, the hope is that it will allow them to find more work and perhaps branch out into other areas of broadcasting. Many talents are exclusive to one game but hope that TVRN will allow them to have a shot at other titles in the future.
“It can be quite difficult, especially if a specific talent is seen as ‘only’ doing one type of game even though they may be a very good fit in other genres,” said esports host Katie Bedford. “Networking is also a huge part of this puzzle, so another avenue digitally to connect is a huge positive – especially for anyone not local to places like Los Angeles.”
The hope from Johnson is that TVRN will eventually become the default platform for booking talent in the esports space, and with little in the way of competition it has a chance to do so. But currently, the talent coming onto TVRN aren’t seeing it that way, and instead are adding it to their current list of tools they use to get booked.
“Being on TVRN isn’t going to lessen the work I will need to do to get recognized and/or hired,” said Garrett “Gojj” Wilson. “But instead I can focus my networking and outreach efforts and time spent on a more efficient platform. Instead of the cold call message of ‘if you are looking for on-air talent’, I will know they are actively looking to hire.”
TVRN certainly has an interesting future ahead of it and could become an essential platform for broadcast talent across the gaming space. However it’s going to live or die based on the companies that sign up and actively use the platform, and while some big names have already signed up, that list is going to need to grow further in the coming months to establish TVRN as a long-term success.
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