The continuation of the Regenesis format or the possible return to the regular league, transfers, MCs who withdraw from the league, the rnking of promotion, the Super League There are many unknowns in the world of freestyle in these days. Therefore, we chatted with one of the men who can give us the most answers about the future of the discipline. Asier, the Boss, as many call him on social networks, talks to Diario AS and resolves some of the doubts that many of us have.
How would the CEO of the company that manages it define FMS?
The FMS is a professional league of freestyle. What we did was give contracts and pay competitors so that what was previously a hobby, which sometimes had a prize, became a job.
And for you, in this professional league, the freestyle Should I move more towards the artistic or sporting side?
I think it is an art with a sports structure. There is competition, but the artistic component must not be lost, which is what captivates the public and makes it magical. freestyle. We looked at skateboarding or surfing, which were artistic disciplines and were professionalized by adding that sports structure we talked about. That was also what Red Bull did with respect to the battles that took place in the 70s. Even so, for me it must be made clear that this is still an artistic discipline much more than a sport.
The first FMS, which was the Spanish one, was in 2017. How has the entire product matured and evolved from that year to now?
Wow, all this has been crazy. We made the first FMS with a loan from Lanzadera, which is Juan Roig’s accelerator. And to give you an idea, we currently spend more on a single event than on all the days of that first league. At first we went to clubs with 600-800 people and now we go to sports halls with many more. We started with four or five people and now there are about 80 of us working on it.
The product has taken on a lot of grandiloquence, so to speak, and I think that looking to the future we must take two steps back because what is important is the essence and it is being lost with so many resources and time dedicated to improving the infrastructure.
Has Red Bull been a reference for Urban Roosters? Is that grandiloquence you mention due to trying to follow in his footsteps?
Red Bull made a difference within the ecosystem of rap battles and is evidently a multinational with many resources. We were a group of friends and a much more austere startup. It has been our reference many times. When we arrived, Red Bull began to have even more spectacular montages. That made us slipstream to try to improve the scenery.
Now we want to go back and recover the essence, that the most important thing is the show. FMS Caribe has been a good example. There have been many external problems, such as the revolts in Panama, the earthquake in Ecuador, etc. that have prevented us from doing things the way we want. But in the end, in a studio, with 200 people, a magical atmosphere has been generated. And the spending on these events, as it was the year of the pandemic, is much lower.
Regarding the current season, how would you evaluate the Regenesis, with the reduction of the format, the withdrawals, the transfers…?
I value it as a season of learning. We have made many mistakes. We made decisions thinking only that we could market better by doing the entire season in one year. We put a firecracker up our own asses, pardon the expression, and that meant we had to rush to adapt to an annual calendar. That made us make mistakes on several occasions. Internally we were also going through many changes. Of the 10 years that I have been dedicating myself to the project, this has been the hardest, both personally and professionally. I think these failures will help us better define what to do in the future.
Also, I think that this year we have been a little lax with some topics. We have not been imperative to fulfill the contracts. From now on we are not going to be so flexible. It’s something the kids are going to know. If you are, you are, and you have to fulfill your responsibilities and your contracts. We know that sometimes life is hard and you can have anxiety. It happens to many people and they have to take medication. You have to take care of your mental health, but you can’t leave your job. We want to help them, get them a psychologist if they need it, but I think we cannot allow there to be a certain accommodation as has happened. Saying I’m angry and I’m getting off this year is over. We are also going to be more communicative. We want the public to know all the versions. There are many times that we have been hanged dead for remaining silent.
We have not been imperative to fulfill the contracts. From now on we will not be so flexible
And the transfers?
It has been a bit lights and shadows. They have been a success at the entertainment level and there have been confrontations that had not occurred before. The freestylers They have evolved and grown.
However, it is true that at the business level it has not gone as well as we would like. With the fuel crisis due to the war in Ukraine, we found ourselves with flights that were three times more expensive than what we had budgeted.
The transfers, being a test, we cannot do them as we would like, but we speak with the MCs They were willing to move. I think that communicationally we don’t explain it well. People think that I would get up and say this is how it is, but really we always agreed with the freestylers.
At first we considered also transferring the promoted ones so that they could improve their characters, but when talking to some of them we realized that they preferred to compete in the league for which they had fought. As there was a 50%-50% vote, we held an internal vote in which we decided to carry it out. However, when consulting with the community, they rejected it and finally they were not given. I think our tendency has to go more towards that, to be a consultative company and for the public to decide what they want to consume.
The transfers have been a bit lights and shadows
And the change of format? Are you satisfied with the hybrid between regular league and playoff?
I will return to the regular league. I’ve talked to people when they came to the events and many didn’t know who they were facing or how the groups were going. We have added a degree of complexity. This season we have been coffee for coffee growers and we have kept away the tourist crowd. It is easier to understand what a league of all against all is like and that the champion is the one with the most points. We have lost our own differentiation, which was to have a competition in which whoever won was the most consistent. We wanted to have more spectacular finals, but we must return to the origins.
So, for the next campaign, will we return to the regular league with 12 MCs per country?
I don’t want to get involved in the 12 participants (laughs).
What I know will be transfers, right? Several boys have told us that they want to move
They want to be transferred, but there is nothing official (laughs). Some people put pressure on social networks, but I think we should study it well and everything should be in its proper measure. Maybe, at most there has to be one per league. In the end it is also a logistical problem and they are very excited now, but when the season arrives it is still difficult for them to spend so many hours on the plane and be away from home.
And with all the expenses there are for salaries, the issue of transfers, travel, and so on… Are the FMS profitable?
We have never had a profitable year because it was not what we were looking for either. Since 2015, when we were established as a company, we have had exponential growth in turnover. And all this, plus the capital increases, we have reinvested because we were in a growth phase. Now we are going to try to make the leagues profitable and that will have an impact on taking fewer risks in production.
Changing the subject a little, do you think that the voting system is outdated and that the boxes do not reflect what the judge wants to vote for?
We are working on changes. The implementation of our voting system was very innovative. The problem is that we have been with it for seven years and there are people who grew up doing formats on YouTube. We believe it exists as a hack in some sense and that it differs from what we are looking for. I mean that we look for the MCs more special and that leave magical moments. And now with our own format we have a tendency that the best is the one that fails the least. Therefore, from now on we are going to try to enhance the risk and the show. This will be accompanied by changes in salaries and in the voting system, which will focus more on the macro (whole rounds) and not on the micro (pattern by pattern).
What do you think of the current level of freestylers? It is increasingly difficult for profiles like Gazir, Sweet Pain to advance… Is there a generational change so that when the big stars like Aczino or Chuty retire, there are other competitors to replace them?
I believe that currently we have a higher level than ever, but I do know that it is true that due to professionalization and the voting system we increasingly have MCs more similar. This happened in the old days. When something is trending, people imitate it.
We are working on a radical change to the promotion system. In several of the 350 organizations that are attached to the circuit, we have found cases of corruption, threats to freestylers, sales of quotas, managers who bribe judges. It is impossible for us to control everything. Furthermore, until now the one who had more resources or time available or the one who had a sponsor has risen. It was a volume ranking. We have to change to a kind of draft system in which, through a jury of experts and the community, the profiles that advance are chosen. Care must be taken to ensure that there are unique participants.
We have encountered cases of managers bribing judges
And what do you think will happen to the leagues in the future? The subject of the Super League, of the FMS United States, is widely rumored
With the Super League you are not wrong at all. It is a very interesting project that we have been working on and studying for some time. It is very possible. FMS USA is an option and now we have opened FMS Brazil, the first league that is not in our language.
Finally, a question that is always obligatory. Is there a chance that Bnet will return to FMS?
Well, that depends on Bnet, I’ve said it many times (laughs).
