CHICAGO -- High above the main audience inside the Chicago Theatre stands Alberto "Crumbz" Rengifo, 23. A retired professional League of Legends player, who has specialized in coaching and content creating, Rengifo is not only talking to the 4,000 fans in Chicago's historic theater, but hundreds of thousands watching the League of Legends World Championships at home.
Like many traditional sports analysts, Rengifo has built a career after playing the game as a pro. But in esports, Rengifo is something of an anomaly.
It seems like it would be common for former pros to turn to casting, due to the large esports fanbase that supports players during their playing careers -- whether from purchasing merchandise or watching and donating to their live streams. But few have been able to do what Rengifo has since his career came to an abrupt end in May when his team, Renegades, was banned from the League of Legends Championship Series.
"When [Renegades got banned], it was a shock. Everybody got a call like 10 minutes before it happened, 'Hey, you're not going to be able to do this now,'" he says. "That was s-----. I was ready to give up playing if I had to, but I really felt we were really reaching a really good spot with the team, in terms of how we were playing, but I don't think everyone shared that same sentiment. All in all, I think it worked out for the best."
Since Renegades' unexpected exit, Rengifo has moved on to create a name for himself, making YouTube videos about the game (which he also did during his playing career), coaching Apex Gaming's Challenger squad, and most recently, becoming a regular contributor to Riot Games' analyst desk.
"For committing to broadcast [after Renegades was banned], I didn't receive a lot of offers as I quit playing," he says. "People felt apprehensive in approaching me as if I needed a space to kind of get my head straight or sorted. I didn't receive many offers from people for what I wanted to do ... I pursued [coaching at Apex], and it was only after I had really adjusted myself to [coaching] that the offer for doing the analyst desk with Riot came about, and I could do that as well."
The latter venture first began at the 2014 World Championships in a supporting role. He made some of the boldest predictions among his peers, and his off-the-wall analysis, although originally criticized, would eventually be correct. This earned him the name "Prophet Crumbz."
Now, two years later, the analyst desk is one of Rengifo's main jobs in the esports industry. He has already participated in three weeks of this year's World Championship and will continue through the next two weeks. He says it's something he loves being able to do, despite some setbacks.
"Being on the desk is kind of frustrating at times and extremely fun," he says. "The fun part is that obviously you get to joke around on-camera and you get to enjoy an incredible job. I love doing it every time. It's one of the most fun things to do, and it was the first thing I wanted to do after I stopped playing."
He says that fan and viewer pushback, particularly because of the limited time given to the analyst desk, is one of the more frustrating aspects of the job.
"The downside is because I know the game on such an intimate level, it's hard to get your point across for everything you know," he explains. "When you gotta be on a segment, you have three points, these are the three points I work doing. And [fans say], 'You missed this, you missed that.' And no, we saw all of it, but we only had time to cover this little thing, and I think that's the part that's a little frustrating for all of the color casters or everybody who wants to go more in-depth in the game."
"The fun part is that obviously you get to joke around on-camera and you get to enjoy an incredible job. I love doing it every time. It's one of the most fun things to do, and it was the first thing I wanted to do after I stopped playing." Alberto "Crumbz" Rengifo
Moving forward, Rengifo says that he plans to start his own management agency for esports players, specifically in League of Legends. That line of work is becoming more common as the esports industry grows and players accumulate higher salaries while simultaneously lacking much of the knowledge needed when negotiating contracts and sponsorship deals.
"I'm creating my own agency for management with a couple of other partners to actually help players either negotiate contracts, do their own branding, whatever sponsors or anything they want to do in the future," he says. "I think it's so important that that's one of the things I'm doing right now."
He says the idea came from attending an esports conference and meeting a business partner who has experience in the Hollywood entertainment industry. While Rengifo didn't specify the name of his business partners, he did say their experience is invaluable to his new project.
"One of the guys I've been working with has been in the Hollywood management industry for over 20 years, and he's helping me out with that," Rengifo says. "Through him is where I got the idea that this may be something to work on. It all came about in an incredible fashion. I think now, that's kind of the backbone through all of it and the bridge to esports."
Rengifo says the motivation of his new project is to help inexperienced players learn from the lessons he learned as a player and even what he has learned now.
"I think that right now something that people don't really understand, that applies to all aspects of life, is that no one knows what they're doing, especially in such a young industry like esports," he explains. "I think that the people who have the experience and ability to help others are going to be incredibly valuable. To me, I don't really like seeing players that get abused and have no idea what to do, that have such a profitable and incredible career, but they don't really know what to do with it, and they could be so much more."