UP211: The esport psychologist

Mia Stellberg is an esport psychologist. She’s employed by some of the world’s most successful teams to help them win and keep the best gamers in the world happy and focused on being the best they can be. Stellberg wrote recently that “Esport is chess at warp speed. It’s strategic, you need to be really clever, several steps ahead of your opponent, you need to have good strategy, you need to practice all the time, to the point – and even beyond – of obsession.” So, what does she do to make good players better? What’s the tension between the needs of the individual player and the team owners? What are the areas of competitive advantage that determine the difference between winning and losing? But beyond that, we talk about the life of a pro gamer, the pressures and the incentives. And we ask how the usual tropes of sports psychology apply to the gaming world, things like team culture, 10,000 hours and marginal gains.Welcome to a world I hardly knew existed, and an opportunity to delve in to the lives and the minds of some of the best and highest paid esports gamers working today.If you don’t already get the weekly Unofficial Partner newsletter, you can join thousands of busy sports biz execs who receive it direct to their inbox every Thursday, subscribe via unofficialpartner.comEvery episode of Unofficial Partner can be found by using the big podcast providers, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts or via your favourite podcast app. Unofficial Partner is the leading podcast for the business of sport. A mix of entertaining and thought provoking conversations with a who's who of the global industry. To join our community of listeners, sign up to the weekly UP Newsletter and follow us on Twitter and TikTok at @UnofficialPartnerWe publish two podcasts each week, on Tuesday and Friday. These are deep conversations with smart people from inside and outside sport. Our entire back catalogue of 500 sports business conversations are available free of charge here. Each pod is available by searching for ‘Unofficial Partner’ on Apple, Spotify and every podcast app. If you’re interested in collaborating with Unofficial Partner to create one-off podcasts or series and live events, you can reach us via the website.