My initial position on this one a very strong NAY for a myriad of reasons, please see the discussion below for details.

For a proposal of this magnitude, we don't have an adequate track record of execution, and the treasury is taking too much execution risk, since the funds are delivered upfront. Ideally the esports orgs share in the upfront risk which will align the project for success. Alternately, another path with shared risk and better alignment for success is if the product(s) can be built independently, incubated as a business, and seek out esports organizations as customers or strategic partners.

I don't exposure and marketing is what polkadot need most. The ability to onboard more developers easily is. I see the main direction is contract platform support, infrastructures, developer tools, etc.

I greatly appreciate that people outside Polkadot are interested in building on the network, however, the proposal seems to me overly ambitious and with a very high cost of execution to personally consider an AYE. I would like to see it broken down into clearer, more concise KPIs with more defined timelines, so that I can begin to evaluate the proposal in a more serious way.

While engaging esports audiences through gamification, NFTs and creative user experiences has long-term potential, this proposal feels premature and overly ambitious. With a 1.5M DOT ask and limited clarity on measuring success, the treasury would be taking on all the execution risk, especially without milestone-based accountability or skin in the game from the execution team or esports partners. Instead of funding multiple esports teams simultaneously, we should focus on creating real, actionable user experiences based on Polkadot, which delivers tangible value and engagement. The Heroic partnership is already funded and provides a perfect testbed for many of the proposed ideas. Let's learn from this experiment first, refine our approach and only then consider scaling up to larger or more expensive collaborations. For these reasons, we vote NAY.

It's a good idea to build a front with sufficient runway to operate in the e-sports field, and the language of the proposal aligns well with the cultural fabric of Polkadot. However, I think the collective should first gain credibility through smaller budgets and projects. I understand that smaller budgets may not allow for working with the biggest names in the field, but there should be ways to prove the concept before embarking on a grand programme.