Esports business publication Esports Insider has been sold to another company and one of its founding fathers, Sam Cooke, announced that he will be leaving the company (and his role as managing director) to start his own venture. While the new owner was not disclosed, Cooke said in a social media post that the website will have more of a focus on media.
“Sport Global/SBC, the majority owners of ESI & with whom I built it from the beginning, have sold the business and the new owners will take it in a bit of a different direction, focusing on media only,” Cooke wrote in a social media post on Wednesday.
He also announced that he is working on a new venture with some partners that will be announced at a later date.
Cooke also announced that he has taken on the role of chief business development officer at UNEVN, a computer gaming accessories company that focuses on gaming furniture solutions. The company’s flagship product is called BASE desk, which is described as a “reimagined, truly portable PC gaming setup.”
Cooke spent more than nine years at Esports Insider where he helped build the publication into a leading esports business news destination, as a marketing company for the sector, and as one of the top esports industry events companies in the world.
As for the future of ESI, it is unclear as of this writing who the new buyer is, what majority owner SBC sold the publication for, and what its new direction will be in 2025.
Founded in 2016 and headquartered in London, Esports Insider is a leading esports business-focused B2B media company that includes the website EsportsInsider.com, its events subsidiary ESI Events, media arm ESI Media, and its marketing agency ESI Connect.
SBC is a B2B media and events company focused on the global sports betting and the gaming industry that owns and operates betting consultancy company SBC Advisory Partners, sports betting and gaming industry event arm SBC Events, betting-focused B2B news publisher SBC Media, and Esports Insider.
This is a developing story…
Editor’s note: The first paragraph was tweaked to reflect what Cooke said about the future of ESI under its new ownership, as a previous iteration of this story attributed a comment from Cooke that he did not make.