Brian McCauley, PhD
I am a marketing researcher exploring how esports and gaming communities are built, managed and legitimised, from grassroots LAN events in Sweden to the organisations and cities that develop around them.
My work examines how people play, consume and form identities online, how gaming brings people together offline, and how value is created where digital and physical worlds meet (aka the phygital). As a qualitative researcher, I study gaming's role in digital society through the lenses of marketing, sustainability and entrepreneurship. I also develop auto-netnographic methods that use diaries of play to explore lived gaming experiences.
About
I am an Assistant Professor of Marketing at the Media, Management and Transformation Centre (MMTC), Jönköping International Business School, Jönköping University. I study how gaming and esports communities are built, managed and recognised, and how they create value for participants, organisations and places. My research spans gaming culture, grassroots esports, esports legitimisation, employer branding through esports, and community management across physical and digital settings.
Based in Jönköping, a city closely associated with DreamHack, I work with the people and organisations that build esports locally, including LAN organisers, the Swedish Esports Federation, Esport United, DreamHack, Glitched and Jönköping Municipality. I also advise the municipality on its strategy for esports and gaming.
My work uses qualitative methods to explore gaming in the digital society through the lenses of marketing, sustainability and entrepreneurship. I am particularly interested in how online play connects with offline experiences, relationships and places, the intersection often described as "phygital". My research has also involved developing Green Turtle Hero, an educational game created with Vietnam Clean & Green to engage children with anti-littering. I also develop auto-netnographic approaches, using diaries of play to examine gaming from a participant's perspective.
As founding Vice Chair of the Esports Research Network, I have helped develop the field's research community since 2019. This includes helping organise the inaugural ERN Symposium and the in-person esports research conference ERNC22, alongside editorial work supporting esports scholarship.
I am also an award-winning teacher. My teaching connects marketing theory with real challenges through client projects, collaborative learning and opportunities to experiment. I explain both why students undertake particular activities and the research behind my teaching approach.
I am Director of Studies for the forthcoming Master's programme in Academic Esports and Digital Society at Jönköping University's School of Education and Communication (HLK), launching in 2027. The programme connects research, education and industry to explore the role of gaming and esports in contemporary society.
I welcome media enquiries, speaking invitations and consulting opportunities related to gaming culture, esports communities and the role of gaming in organisations and cities. If you are working on these questions, get in touch.
Keynote
Research
Publications
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2026Managing phygital experiences in grassroots esports: human-centered orchestration in the Swedish LAN-scape. McCauley, B., Berndt, A., & Helmefalk, M. Journal of Services Marketing.Key insightsKey insightsInterviews with 28 LAN organisers
- LAN parties blend a physical venue with digital play, and Swedish organisers manage that blend mainly through people rather than technology.
- The paper introduces human-centred phygital orchestration: how organisers, volunteers and community norms coordinate the physical and digital sides of the experience.
- It extends Batat's phygital customer experience framework and Baudet and Parmentier's four phygital strategies into grassroots esports.
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2026The future of esports sustainability: interdisciplinary pathways and challenges in an AI-mediated digital transformation of society. Scholz, T., & McCauley, B. Journal of Electronic Gaming and Esports.Key insightsKey insightsConceptual paper
- Revisits the sustainability debate in esports and maps the interdisciplinary pathways needed to move it forward.
- Considers how AI-mediated digital transformation changes the challenges facing players, organisations and governance.
- Treats gaming and esports as conceptually distinct but practically inseparable when thinking about sustainability.
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ForthcomingDisruption by esports: the digital transformation of media businesses. Guest editors' introduction. McCauley, B., & Scholz, T. Journal of Media Business Studies.Key insightsKey insightsSpecial issue introduction · six papers
- Frames esports as a disruptor of media business across three domains: digital media environments, stakeholder interactions and institutional interfaces.
- Each domain disrupts something different: business models, producer and audience logics, and organisational structures.
- Positions phygital orchestration as a layer that cuts across all three, and sets out four directions for future research.
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2025Exploring esports as a platform to develop organizational teams: the case of Valorant. McCauley, B. Team Performance Management.Key insightsKey insightsAuto-netnography · Valorant
- Draws on an auto-netnographic study of team play in the shooter Valorant to explore how esports can support team development inside organisations.
- Shows how communication, defined roles and coordination under pressure in play map onto workplace teamwork.
- Points to esports as a practical tool for team building and, by extension, employer branding.
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2025Innovation in the esports servicescape: a media business research agenda. McCauley, B., Berndt, A., Helmefalk, M., & Hedlund, D. Journal of Media Business Studies, 22(2), 87–117.Key insightsKey insightsResearch agenda
- Applies the servicescape concept to esports, where the service environment is both a physical venue and a digital space.
- Maps the esports servicescape ecosystem through its stakeholders: audiences, endemic and non-endemic actors, and professional creators.
- Sets out a research agenda on how innovation in these servicescapes matters for media businesses.
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2023Legitimizing the game: how gamers' personal experiences shape the emergence of grassroots collective action in esports. Cestino, J., Macey, J., & McCauley, B. Internet Research, 33(7), 111–132.Key insightsKey insightsQualitative study
- Follows how gamers' own experiences of esports lead them to organise grassroots collective action.
- Shows that conflicting judgements about what makes esports legitimate push players into activism.
- Positions grassroots actors as active contributors to the legitimisation of esports, not only its audience.
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2023An auto-netnographic approach to understanding alternate gaming accounts: how smurfing impacts the prosumer experience in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. McCauley, B. Journal of Electronic Gaming and Esports, 1(1).Key insightsKey insightsAuto-netnography · CS:GO
- Draws on the author's own gaming diaries to study smurfing: experienced players using alternate accounts to play at lower ranks.
- Frames players as prosumers whose behaviour produces part of everyone else's experience in the match.
- Shows auto-netnography as a way to study online play from inside the experience.
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2022Current issues of sustainability in esports. Nyström, A., McCauley, B., Macey, J., Scholz, T., et al. International Journal of Esports. Most citedKey insightsKey insightsWorkshops, ERN Symposium 2019
- Social sustainability is the main concern: player burnout and injury, limited diversity, and toxicity in online spaces.
- The industry structure is incomplete, with inconsistent standards, contested governance, publishers holding most of the power, and integrity risks.
- The business logic is immature: revenue models are weak, careers are short and training is underdeveloped.
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2020Shaping a regional offline eSports market: understanding how Jönköping, the 'City of DreamHack', takes URL to IRL. McCauley, B., Tierney, K., & Tokbaeva, D. International Journal on Media Management, 22(1), 30–48.Key insightsKey insightsCase: Jönköping
- Examines how Jönköping, home of DreamHack, built a regional market for offline esports.
- Shows how online gaming communities move "URL to IRL" through LAN events and physical venues.
- Highlights the roles of the city, event organisers and local actors in shaping that market.
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2020Digital gaming culture in Vietnam: an exploratory study. McCauley, B., Nguyen, T. H. T., McDonald, M., & Wearing, S. Leisure Studies, 39(3), 372–386.Key insightsKey insightsExploratory study
- One of the first studies of digital gaming culture in Vietnam.
- Describes how young Vietnamese players play, and how social and collective that play is.
- Adds a Southeast Asian perspective to a leisure and game studies literature centred on Western contexts.
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2020'Smashing it': how user entrepreneurs drive innovation in esports communities. Koch, N., Pongratz, S., McCauley, B., & Achtenhagen, L. International Journal of Esports, 1(1).Key insightsKey insightsCase: European Super Smash Bros. scene · 12 interviews
- User entrepreneurs are driven by belonging and care for the community rather than money, and often pay for events themselves.
- Their insider knowledge lets them see needs that outside organisers miss.
- Limited publisher support created uncertainty, but also an improvising, welcoming culture that helped the scene innovate.
Book chapters
- 2024Esports branding and marketing. McCauley, B., & Baker, B. J. In Routledge Handbook of Esports (pp. 338–347).
- 2024Organizing esports events. Helmefalk, M., Berndt, A., McCauley, B., Borg, M. E., & Erlandsson, V. In Routledge Handbook of Esports (pp. 302–314).
- 2021Mind games: Playtest as an allegory for liquid modernity. Macey, J., & McCauley, B. In Reading "Black Mirror" (pp. 69–86). transcript-Verlag.
Creative work
- 2018Green Turtle Hero (Anh Hung Rua Xanh). A mobile game made with the Vietnamese NGO Vietnam Clean & Green.
Projects
The Esports Research Report
Conversations with researchers and industry about what the evidence says on esports. 50 episodes from 2020 to 2022, relaunched in 2026.
Spotify ↗YouTube ↗Esports Research Network
The global network for esports researchers, with more than 680 members and an annual conference, ERNC.
Visit ERN ↗ Master's programme · Director of StudiesAcademic Esports and Digital Society
A joint Nordic master's with the University of Agder and Tampere University. First intake in 2027.
Programme details ↗Teaching
Esports Marketing and Management
Open to undergraduate and postgraduate students. The first cohort developed the marketing for the launch of the Glitched LAN festival in 2025.
Marketing Communications
Awarded the student-voted JIBS Student Union Pedagogy Prize in 2026. Earlier recognised with the RMIT Head of School Excellence in Teaching Award (2014).
Real clients, real briefs
Marketing students at JIBS have delivered work on gaming and esports for DreamHack, ChallengerMode and Jönköping Municipality.
Service
- 2019–Founding Vice Chair, Esports Research Network (ERN). Grew the network from its start to more than 680 members, with a Discord community of over 1,500.
- 2022–Founding Associate Editor, Journal of Electronic Gaming and Esports (Human Kinetics).
- 2022–Guest Editor, Journal of Media Business Studies special issue "Disruption by Esports" and JEGE special issue on sustainable esports.
- 2025–Advisory Board, FLARE.
- 2022Conference Chair, ERNC22. The first in-person dedicated esports research conference, on "Sustainable Esports in the Digital Society", with over 100 researchers.
- 2019Host, inaugural ERN Symposium, "Developing a Sustainable Future for Esports", Jönköping.
- 2021–25Track Chair, Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS), minitrack on Digitalization of Work.
- 2020–24Founding Editorial Board, International Journal of Esports.
Selected talks
- 2026Keynote, ERNC26, Tsukuba, Japan. Watch above
- 2026Teaching presentation, EDUCATE, Jönköping University, following the 2026 Pedagogy Prize.
- 2025Understanding place identity and esports: the case of Jönköping. Academic Esports Seminar, University of Agder.
- 2024Playing esports as a middle-aged noob. Academic Esports Seminar, University of Agder.
- 2023Workshop facilitator, ESIC Global Esports Summit, London.
- 2022Keynote, opening of the Esports Centre at Halmstad University.
- 2021Expert panel: The future of esports research. CHI PLAY 2021.
Path
- 2003GalwayBA in Economics, Sociology and Politics, University of Galway
- 2009–2015MelbourneMaster's degrees and PhD in Marketing Communications, RMIT. Lecturer at RMIT and Monash
- 2015–2018Ho Chi Minh CityLecturer, RMIT University Vietnam. Research on Southeast Asian gaming cultures
- 2018–JönköpingAssistant Professor of Marketing, JIBS
Contact
I welcome contact from researchers, students, industry partners and journalists working on esports and gaming.
brian.mccauley@ju.se