This week I sat down with Callum Dornan (SAF Cal), the owner, founder, and head of SAF. We had a 20-minute chat with a few questions for this article planned which turned into a 90-minute ramble about all things FIFA and content creation.
“We got into esports as a by-product of me trying to avoid a tax bill!”
Cal is a content creator himself, streaming on Twitch. He is someone I have watched for over 2 years now and is honestly one of the kindest and most humble people I have come across in this space. It isn’t exaggerating to say he was probably the person who helped me the most as a content creator, whether it be including me in a giveaway which helped me grow my social media following or offering advice on content or dealing with certain people. He has always been someone willing to go the extra mile to help a friend. How then does he have the time to run an esports team, a huge group of content creators and his own stream? With very little sleep is probably the answer.
About SAF
SAF is a gaming organisation based predominantly in the FIFA scene. They boast a roster including some of the best FIFA players in the world, a handful of large content creators across multiple platforms and a host of up-and-coming content creators who are on the fast track to success. They employ graphic designers, video editors and a team of backroom staff who are working endlessly to build the brand and make them a real name within the FIFA scene and beyond and it all started in a Facebook Group
How did SAF begin?
His initial response was “By mistake”. This wasn’t too far from the truth, although it was more a case of by chance than mistake. Cal went on to explain to me that as an avid FIFA player for many years he was part of a FIFA group on Facebook in which he would regularly interact with other FIFA players, helping people out with their teams, giving his opinion on players, and generally trying to help people within the group. This led to him gaining something of a reputation as the go to person when you wanted an opinion on a player or tactic and led to him regularly writing reviews in essay form of new cards in the game. At this point it was “nothing more than a hobby” he explained, he had no intentions of getting into content creation.
From this helpful interaction Cal explains that he started gaining a bit of a following within the Facebook group, adding that the owners of the group didn’t seem to like it and blocked him from the group.
Cal decided to set up a Facebook page and some friends within the group he had been exiled from directed his following to his new page. This was the birth of Serious About FIFA (the original name of SAF, changed as the brand grew to avoid copyright issues with FIFA). Laughing he told me he never had any plans to set up an organisation at the time, it was just one guy who was serious about FIFA.
Shortly after making the page on Facebook, Cal and a group of people who acted as moderators for him set up a community group on Facebook which over time started to include more people, growing his following massively.
When and why did Cal decide to make SAF into an eSports team?
Jokingly, with a level of truth to it, Cal said the reason he started the eSports team was to “avoid paying more tax”. Now lets just clarify that this isn’t some tax evasion scheme, it was a business decision to reinvest profits rather than taking them out of the business.
As the Facebook group grew to 5/6000 members, one of the members reached out to Cal and suggested starting to give some trading advice. Rather than do this in the group the decision was made initially to use the forum section of the SAF website to post advice. Cal quickly realised this wouldn’t work because it lacked the ability to interact in real time which is often needed to successfully give trading advice. With this in mind he moved the trading service to Discord, becoming one of the first paid FIFA trading services.
Cal explains that the reason to charge a small fee was less to do with making money and more to do with putting an entry cost on membership of the group to weed out most trolls. This is like when larger streamers use sub only mode in their chat, yes it encourages paid membership, but it also acts as a sort of firewall to trolls. Very few people are inclined to spend money just to post abuse.
As the trading group named SIP (now called SAF FIFA 22 Trading Club) grew there was a decision to make. What should they do with the money earned from the membership fees? Cal decided that given he was working full time as a financial advisor, which meant that any money he withdrew from the SAF business would incur a tax bill of 40%, the better decision was to reinvest the money.
After floating a couple of ideas, the decision was to invest the money into creating an esports team. Cal explained, “I know I’m not good enough to compete, but I would like to be involved at the top end of FIFA”. This was the decision that set Cal and by extension the whole of SAF on the path to becoming a major player in the FIFA eSports industry. He goes on the explain that the first year was a disaster, they didn’t sign any majorly competitive talent basing their first signing purely on weekend league performance. The eventually lost this player to a Norwegian esports team after a 6-month stint with SAF earning a transfer fee that covered the investment they had made over the 6 months.
“The reality with FIFA eSports is that the eSports side is a by-product for EA”
Talking about the challenges that must be overcome to create and build a successful esports team, Cal told me that one of the biggest challenges is that the eSports side of FIFA is seen as a by-product by EA rather than a central focus. This is quite a contrast to other games where we see major hype and focus on eSports. You only have to look at Call of Duty and the publicity the CDL receives compared to FIFA to see that this does ring true.
Cal explained to me how EA also control every aspect of competitive FIFA. “If you want to run a tournament where you are putting in a prize pool of above $2,500 (USD), you have to get a licence from them.” At first glance this does seem a little overbearing in terms of the level of control EA are showing, however the flip side of this is that any tournament on their game effectively represents their brand so this would likely be more to do with them vetting tournaments rather than restricting them.
Another aspect that EA have full control over is who can sponsor eSports teams. If EA doesn’t approve of a tournament sponsor, they can withhold a license, if they don’t approve of an eSports team’s sponsor, they can refuse the team permission to wear their uniform on any EA broadcast. Again, this does seem more of a brand protection move from EA rather than asserting control needlessly, but regardless of why EA enforce these rules it does create hurdles for aspiring eSports teams.
As a last note on the challenges of building an eSports brand, Cal explains that gaining sponsorships is a battle. He tells me that most potential sponsors he speaks to have had bad experiences within esports in the past and this adds a level of reluctance for them to invest into esports. Its not hard to see how this makes the job of securing the funding required to run SAF much more challenging and the fact that Cal and the team he has working with him have come so far in such a short period of time is a testament to both the way the team is run and the confidence they can command from sponsors.
One last question. What does the future hold for SAF?
“Retirement” was the immediate response from Cal. Jokingly he says it, but there is an element of truth to it, and a level of self-reflection that isn’t seen in most people. Explaining to me that the future of SAF may lie as much outside of FIFA as it does within this game, SAF are looking to explore other games on a competitive level, branching the brand out to other popular esports platforms. Whether this becomes a reality is something that time will tell us, but it does show that SAF is being run now with the view to becoming a major force within esports in general.
Reflecting on himself as the owner of SAF, Cal explained to me that he wasn’t sure if he would be the right person to lead SAF forever, adding that he has a very laid-back approach to dealing with the business side of things. Something I noted was evident from the fact we had been chatting for 90 minutes rather than the 20-30 minutes he had set aside for this call. Cal is very self-aware, and while he puts his heart and soul into the brand as its leader, he is humble enough to accept that if a time comes where he feels SAF would benefit from somebody else taking the reins he would not shy away from making that decision.
The dedication of a one-time Facebook essay writer/tax dodger, to grow an esports brand, a team of successful content creators, one of, if not the largest trading service for FUT and his own content channels is something I admire greatly, and from myself and BBBGN I wish SAF and Cal all the best of what the future undoubtedly holds.
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