FaZe Clan CEO Lee Trink: 'There's nothing a young male cares about more than gaming'

Gaming is often thought of as a subculture, but it’s just as dominant a part of youth culture today as music. For gaming companies, that means growth opportunities on par with MTV.

“Music might have been at its core, or might have been its origin, but at some point the majority of content that they made had nothing to do with music,” said Lee Trink, CEO of FaZe Clan, a gaming collective that’s part professional eSports teams and part creator network. “What [MTV] had was a relationship with the audience and they understood what that audience wanted.”

FaZe Clan boasts over 7 million subscribers to its YouTube channel, where its videos regularly top over 1 million views. It created branded content and also operates a merchandise store.

“We reach enough people that we are tantamount to a cable network,” he said.

Trink joined the Digiday Podcast to talk about FaZe Clan’s revenue streams, the brand’s signing its first (and for now, only) female member and what work is like in the Hollywood mansions these content creators all live in together.