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screamsinsilver · 2 years

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An Introduction to Quadrant

I’ve seen too many people saying they don’t know exactly what Quadrant is, so I’m here to help you out

Quadrant is a Gaming and Lifestyle brand (kinda like 100 Thieves) founded by Lando Norris. It has four key elements: gaming, racing, content and apparel. A Gaming and Lifestyle brand is a brand that appeals to the ‘gamer’ culture, and their target market are gamers and racing fans, people who are on the internet, watching YouTube and Twitch, and specifically like racing related content. Lando founded the brand at some point in March 2020, and implemented it with the help of Veloce to launch in November that year (and yes he kept it a secret that whole time).

The name comes from Lando’s number and from the four elements (not from the number of members, like some people thought).

They have a ‘Content Team’, i.e. the people in the spotlight:

Lando Norris: Founder, Formula 1 driver, occasionally streams on Twitch (1M+ followers) and uploads on YouTube (741K subscribers)

Aarav Amin/Aarava: YouTuber (614K subscribers), primarily known for F1 Career Mode gameplay, occasionally streams on Twitch (50K followers).

Maria Bish/RiaBish: Streamer, had a deal with Facebook for a year (100K followers), returning to Twitch in 2022 (13K followers), occasionally uploads vlogs on YouTube (19K subscribers).

Niran Yesufu/FNG: YouTuber (598K subscribers), focussed mostly on Football, but if you know where to look you can find his old F1/racing channel (9K subscribers), occasionally streams on Twitch (42K followers).

Steve Alvarez Brown/SuperGT: YouTuber (640K subscribers / 9K subscribers), simracing content, kart racer (more of that later), on Twitch but he’s not much of a streamer (9K Followers).

Ethan Pink/Fifakill: Streamer (267K followers), plays Call Of Duty on Twitch, uploads on YouTube too (56K followers).

Max Fewtrell: Racing Driver, Streamer (44K followers), probably the biggest non-F1 driver streamer in the motorsports space (relative to stream viewers), mostly chatting streams but he does play games too. He has ambitions to start a YouTube channel to vlog his racing, would start one anyway but doesn’t know what else to make videos about.

Quadrant’s content creators were already ‘popular’ before joining the team, Aarav, Niran and Steve were already on a couple hundred thousand subscribers, Ethan averaging around 700 viewers, Max averaging around 300 viewers (I might elaborate on his growth in another post), Ria averaged around 70 when she was on Twitch, but then secured a deal with Facebook (and I can’t get those stats).

Quadrant has begun branching in esports, starting with the Halo Championship Series. They signed four players who compete on behalf of Quadrant, and participated in their first LAN event on 17-19 December 2021 (HCS Raleigh). They also have plans to expand to other esports categories over the course of 2022 and beyond.

Looking further into the four ‘key aspects’:

Gaming

The members themselves are all gamers, and all ‘create’ gaming content of some sort. A lot of the content posted on their YouTube channel is ‘gaming’ content. 23 of the 62 videos uploaded involve the members playing a videogame. Games played include: F1, Assetto Corsa, Skribbl.io, CoD: Warzone, Golf with your Friends, Five Nights at Freddy’s VR, Minecraft, Rocket League and Geoguessr. Quadrant have also done Squad Streams playing F1, F1 Race Stars (attempted), Minecraft and UNO.

Racing

As the Brand of a Formula 1 driver, there is a primary racing influence. They have done racing focussed segments with Lando and Steve karting content and Quadrant x Yas Heat on track content.

Quadrant also has a ‘sponsorship’ position, after signing as a sponsor for Steve to compete in the Ultimate Karting Championship in 2021. There is a likelihood for them to continue with this with Steve and potentially also Max on his return to racing.

Quadrant also launched a live-streamed series taking place on Lando’s Twitch titled ‘The Pitwall’, a live watchalong to the Formula 1 Grand Prix, with suggestions to expand to other racing series and major motorsport events. The Pitwall is usually hosted by Max and Niran, with guests to be included in later streams. This format allows better audience participation via Twitch chat and Twitter, using #ThePitwall.

Content

As an internet based brand, Quadrant rely on content creation in terms of brand image. Content varies from YouTube videos (weekly videos on Wednesdays at 4pm, which kinda went out the window as of December 2021), TikToks, Instagram posts (yes, that does count as content) and Twitch streams. The Quadrant YouTube channel accrews around two thousand subscribers weekly, fluctuating relative to video release and content.

More recently, Quadrant have capitalised on less Covid restrictions to film more IRL content, including cooking videos, game show-inspired videos, challenges, get-to-know-the-squad videos, and vlogs.

As part of content creation, Quadrant have collaborated with numerous creators, including: Vikkstar123, Jarno Opmeer, Tiametmarduk, CouRageJD, Marcel Kiefer, Tommo McCluskey, TBJZL, WillNE, Haydon Guillis, Felix Von Der Laden, Jardier, Soundhead, Dani Moreno, Zerkaa, James Baldwin, Jimmy Broadbent, Mahaveer Ragunathan (yes, actually), MaximeMXM, TommyT999, Thibaut Courtois, F1Elly, Dr Lupo (kinda), Aldas, Pieface and Yas Heat.

Apparel

Quadrant release merchandise through limited merch drops, each with a different theme. The merch is designed by Will Kerr and approved by Lando and the rest of the team.

vONE: the first collection, in the team’s colours - black and fluro green/yellow. It included a black t-shirt with the split logo on the side and the full name on the chest, a black hoodie with the small full logo on the chest and “QUADRANT” on the sleeve, a black beanie printed with the black Q logo on the front, and a balck bucket hat with Qs printed over it. The hoodie and t-shirt was initially designed by Lando, then kept as the final design, with the bucket hat referencing the iconic Valentino Rossi one, reflecting Lando’s personality.

Speedshop: created in direct collaboration with Veloce, Quadrant released an exclusive merch line sold at the VeloceXQuadrant stand at the Goodwood Festival of Speed. After the event, it was made accessible to Quadrant Discord members, then to the public. The release included a black and cream hoodie and a black and white t-shirt with “QDRNT”, the number 4 and “Lando” printed on the back and sleeves.

Clover Motors: inspired by motorsport visuals, and the name taken from Lando’s number four, with “Clover” referring to a lucky clover with four leaves. The colours were different to that of the previous drops, and Quadnant’s aesthetic on a whole, moving to pink and blue. They released two hoodies, one grey with the signature at the front in blue and the large logo and phone number on the back, the other blue with the signature in pink and the logo smaller on the sleeve, also in pink. A jumper/sweatshirt was released in grey with the logo in the middle on the chest, the same design on one of the t-shirts. The other t-shirt was in blue with white printing: the signature on the front and the big logo and phone number on the back. They also released a long sleeved white shirt with white printing: the small logo on the front in the middle and the big logo and phone number on the back. The phone number was originally going to be connected to a voicemail from the team, with the idea scrapped because they couldn't get it to work, and it would exclude international fans.

Quadrant merch is considered expensive (and I’m not going to disagree, I have yet to cop my first piece), but they do adhere to quality standards, available on the website. The prices reflect the materials used and the workers putting the items together. The items are also shipped in biodegradable packaging. Following vONE, Quadrant supplied responding to demand in terms of sizes relative to the audience.

Over the time they have been active, they have acquired sponsorships from streaming hardware brand Elgato and travel brand Tumi. As well as this they had a paid partnership with Logitech, promoting an OLED monitor. Quadrant have streamed as part of the Gillette Gaming Alliance. Niran and Ria were invited to the LDNUTD x SamsungKX live All Access Gaming event (13th November 2021), and Niran and Max were invited to participate in McLaren Shadow’s Stream For Mind (28th October 2021).

Connecting with the Fans

When Quadrant begen, there was an emphasis on connecting the fans with the creators, through social media content and streams, later introducing an official Discord server. The Discord server was used to create a Q&A video, released in February 2021, collect Yes/No questions, ‘never have I ever’s and ‘who’s most likely to’s, and the ability to submit ideas for future content.

When Covid restrictions in the UK opened up, Quadrant announced their first IRL event - The Goodwood Festival of Speed, in partnership with Veloce, with a few Quadrant members rotating at the Veloce stand over the three days. A week later, the group attended the Formula One British Grand Prix, taking over a grandstand during Friday practice, and the FanZone following Sprint Qualifying. At the end of the season, they went to the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, but less as a fan-connection event. Quadrant have more plans for IRL events in the future.

For those who are unfamiliar, Discord is a mass-messaging platform (supporting instant messaging, voice calling, video calling, screenshare, etc), kinda like a ‘group chat (channel) within group chat (server)’ thing, with permissions based on user roles, used primarily in the gaming community to connect people when playing online, but has also expanded to cater for communities (it’s also my go-to messaging app lol). Discord operates through invite links to servers, and the link can be restricted to a set number of joins, a feature Quadrant utilises and gains criticism for. They usually distribute links with 25 or 50 ‘keys’, and on events, 100, usually via Twitter, Instagram stories, in Emails sent to fans signed up to the mailing list and Twitch chat (there is also one person who I know received a key via Twitter DMs but that was the only one). This has sparked some kind of criticism as it appears that the fans that do get access are ‘favouritised’, and has left fans waiting for keys since the server launch. The Discord server currently has just over 2,600 members (relative to the 450K subscribers), including Team Members, Veloce staff, moderators and bots.

A bit about Veloce

Veloce are the team that organised the ‘Not the GP…’ series during lockdown 2020, featuring Racing Drivers, Professional Simracers and Content Creators, the Veloce Squadsprint, a series of virtual simraces featuring Veloce’s in-house teams, and the Veloce Pro Series focussing on professional racing drivers - but in supercars. Veloce also entered three teams for the Virtual Le Mans 24 in 2020, partnering with drivers such as Jean-Eric Vergne (who’s also Veloce’s founder), Pierre Gasly, Norman Nato, Stoffel Vandoorne, Sacha Fenestraz and Ryan Tveter.

Quadrant is managed/handled by Veloce (the same overall company that compete in W Series and Extreme E, but their esports branch), and their members are also considered to be part of Veloce. Lando has a personal partnership with Veloce for Quadrant. Veloce manage other sim racing-oriented esports teams, such as McLaren Shadow, Sauber Esports, Mercedes AMG Esports and Yas Heat, as well as the in-house team. Quadrant’s manager from March 2020 to November 2021 (Nathan Tague) was also McLaren Shadow’s manager, before departing the Veloce circle to pursue a new challenge. Aarav, Niran and Ria have appeared on Veloce Esports’ Backseat Driver (a ‘live reaction’ to Formula One races) (pre Pitwall launch) and most of the Quadrant members have appeared on the Veloce channel. A lot of Quadrant’s staff also work for Veloce. Notable staff include Kate Hewitt (Social Media), Mickey O’Brian (Marketing/Socials), Cam Royal (not entirely sure, I think he took over from Nathan when he left, he was in charge of Quadrant for both Abu Dhabi trips (discord admin)), and Isaac Forcella (production lead) Jamie MacLaurin (I think he's their manager now, also in charge of the money stuff).

(All stats are correct to the 8th January 2022)

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